The Preserver's Year

Confuzzled

nopot2pin wrote: »

Yup... they are rowan berries....

Interesting LINKY here


Edit... after looking at the marmalade recipe... I think I might be making some

very interesting this is from the site you link to
'Substances:Sorbitol, Sorbic acid, Bitter essence, Tannic essence, Tannic acid, Parasorbic acid, Pectin, Mucous'

i wonder if rowan could be used as a laxitive... i say this because many 'diabetic' sweets contain sorbitol and you are always warned that sorbitol has a laxitive effect!

Confuzzled

ceridwen wrote: »

...and if anyone ever finds any rowan berry recipes that DONT include - wait for it - sugar:D - I would be glad of them purlease. I've had rowan berry jelly - and 'tis nice - but its got that there sugar in hasnt it:rolleyes: - so its not something I'm planning on having very often at all.

Rowan berries are about the only thing there is round here in abundance that I can pick - loadsa them - not much of owt else...:mad:

hmmm....and hawthorn berries as well - plenty of them - but same thing applies - recipes without sugar....

..

i think the problem you'll find with both is that they are very tart, especially rowan which is why all the recipes seem to have a lot of sugar in them

your best bet to reduce sugar usage is to add some bicarb to cut back a bit on the acidity (you must be careful when doing this when making jam, if you are making pies or cordial it's not much to worry about) and to mix them in with sweeter berries

i found that i could add a healthy amount of rowan berries in with rosehips, elderberries, brambles etc and not need to add any more sugar than is called for for making the recipes for jam or cordial, indeed since i'm focusing on making cordial i've actually used LESS sugar, enough to keep it from going off but not as much as most jam requires

i think unless you like really tart, somewhat bitter tasting chutneys and sauces you'll have to give in on the sugar front with rowan and haws

thriftlady_2

Confuzzled wrote: »

very interesting this is from the site you link to
'Substances:Sorbitol, Sorbic acid, Bitter essence, Tannic essence, Tannic acid, Parasorbic acid, Pectin, Mucous'
!

Interesting about the sorbital/sorbic acid because if I remember rightly the latin name for rowan is sorbus;)

foreign_correspondent

Does anyone know whether it is possible to make apple jelly from the apple juice made from fresh apples in a juicer? Has anyone tried it? I wonder if it has enough pectin without the seeds in...

floyd

You could make it by adding commercial bottled pectin, I dont use the stuff but I know there are quite a few U.S recipes that suggest this as the normal way to make apple jelly

Frugalista

Confuzzled wrote: »

you can use applesauce in equal amounts as a substitute for oil and sometiems butter/margerine so if it calls for 1/4 cup oil use the same amount of applesauce

however you MUST have some fat in baking or your product will end up a flat heavy block of a thing, the fat helps it to rise in conjunction with baking powder/bicarb etc etc

i use 1 heaping tablespoon of soy flour and 1 tablespoon of water as a replacement for each egg in a recipe so if i were doing this then i wouldn't want to use the applesauce for the oil because i'd be baking a brick (it would still taste ok it just wouldn't be pleasant to eat, yes i know this both from being warned and from personal experience!)

now if i were to replace oil with applesauce then i would go ahead and use a real egg and that should be enough fat to make it reasonably light

you could also do half oil half applesauce or use 1 egg and 1 egg substitute etc etc and these normally turn out well

obviously don't use egg substitutes in things like quiches or custards unless you have a specially adapted recipe, i'm referring to using them for baking

if you do a google search for universal muffin recipe you will find details on how you can adjust various parts of your recipe to accomodate more wet things, using less sugar, using alternate forms of 'grains' and how to adjust leavening agents, oil usage etc etc

Thank you Confuzzled for a very comprehensive answer :beer:

Now if anyone could tell me if I can preserve jars of unsweetened applesauce I shall be good to go!

nopot2pin

Confuzzled wrote: »

very interesting this is from the site you link to
'Substances:Sorbitol, Sorbic acid, Bitter essence, Tannic essence, Tannic acid, Parasorbic acid, Pectin, Mucous'

i wonder if rowan could be used as a laxitive... i say this because many 'diabetic' sweets contain sorbitol and you are always warned that sorbitol has a laxitive effect!

Oh yeah... I didn't connect the two...

But what I did notice weird on the link, was the Medicinal Uses...
Which include...Constipation AND Diarrhea

The mind boggles eh ??:o:D

ceridwen

Confuzzled wrote: »

yep those are def rowans... best way to identify them is that they have what i think of as a fern like leaf pattern (well that's how they always struck me) once you've seen a few out and about you'll never mistake them

commonly grown in public parks but if you see them in the wild you'll usually find water near by (same thing with birch trees, they like water too)

rowan berries need to be cooked or at least frozen for a few weeks before being eaten, raw berries have something in them called parasorbic acid which is toxic however when you cook or freeze them this changes to sorbic acid which the body can handle just fine

the old wives tale said you needed to wait until after the first frost to use them, this is most likely based on them not being edible without being frozen (or cooked) if you waited until first frost this year you might not get any berries since everything has fruited so early! so don't worry about the old wives tales, we have cookers and freezers!

i prefer to freeze mine before cooking simply because it tends to sweeten them up a bit though saying that i had a bunch of particualrly juicy rowan berries this last time around and they went in as is with my elderberries and other things and i didn't have to add any more sugar than normal, in fact i added less!

one thing you can do with anything that is particularly acidic is to add a small amount of bicarbonate of soda to the batch as this helps to neutralise some of the acid, just a small amount, a tsp or two, you don't want to totally neutralise it or you won't be able to make jam and you'll ruin the flavour

if making pies in particular (with rowans you'd have to add another fruit like brambles, apples, elderberries etc) i would def recommend bicarb as it seriously reduces the amount of sugar you need to add saving money, calories and your teeth!

rowan berries are particularly high in vitamin c and pectin though i'm not sure if one could make jam without additonal pection from either preserving sugar or cooking apples, though it may be possible to just use regular apples with rowans since they are already so high in pectin...not sure though on that point so i offer that up to the more knowledgeable jam makers here

I didnt know that....ie that one could freeze rowan berries for a few weeks, rather than cook them, and that would neutralize the "toxic bit". Hmmm......I feel an experiment coming on with frozen ones then ....

.....and you've raised a point I'm wondering about...ie whether one could make home-made pectin from particularly high pectin things - which would then be usable in making preserves that require pectin......

ceridwen

thriftlady wrote: »

Interesting about the sorbital/sorbic acid because if I remember rightly the latin name for rowan is sorbus;)

Good thing one of us was paying attention in Latin lessons at school then :D - as I certainly wasnt....:D

ceridwen

Frugalista wrote: »

Thank you Confuzzled for a very comprehensive answer :beer:

Now if anyone could tell me if I can preserve jars of unsweetened applesauce I shall be good to go!

....and me as well. I've just made some jars of apple sauce with very little sugar in and am wondering how long they will last for.

Tonight I scored some more freebie apples - of the only good enough to cook summat with variety - so I'm wondering about another batch of jars of apple sauce maybe. The one thing I HAVE worked out so far is that it seems to be the case, as far as I can make out, that each 1 lb of apples probably does one 500 ml jar worth (cough - having gotten 2 part-filled 1 litre jars worth from roughly 4 lb of apples in my first try at this.....cough....).