i've been a proper old style money saver with my free fruit....

newleaf

newleaf wrote:

Have just picked a load of golden cherry plums today, how are they for setting please? Do I need to add lemon juice?

Just bumping this in the hope of some timely advice!
I've stewed the ones that weren't quite sound - a lot had split because of the recent heavy rain. They are rather yummy, and a lovely golden colour, A beggar to stone though.
Anyway, I've got about 8lbs left which will be jammed I think. Any ideas about pectin content please?

doddsy

newleaf wrote:

Have just picked a load of golden cherry plums today, how are they for setting please? Do I need to add lemon juice?

thriftlady posted this really useful list on the Blackberry picking thread recently, I hope she doesn't mind it going here. Setting will depend on the level of pectin in the fruit, and how ripe they are.



Pectin content of fruit

Good
cooking apples
crab apples
currants (red and black)
damsons
gooseberries
lemons
limes
seville oranges (for marmalade)
plums (some varieties)
quinces

These fruits will not need any pectin at all added, you can also add them to fruits low in pectin.

Medium

Eating apples
apricots
bilberries
blackberries
greengages
loganberries
mulberries
plums
raspberries

Unripe fruit has more pectin, so if you use a proportion of unripe berries in your blackberry jam you should get a better set.

Low

Bananas
cherries
elderberries
figs
grapes
japonicas
medlars
melons
nectarines
peaches
pineapple
rhubarb
strawberries

jordylass

I have raspberrries canes in the garden of the house I moved into and got 3lbs of jam out of that, but went on holiday amd missed the last of them. Blackberries are gorgeous here right now and I have 5Lbs of runny jam, will add pectin or apples next time.
My cherries are just ripening and although my garden is full of damned elder, there are no berries yet.

black-saturn

I bought a huge jar of cocktail lemons yesterday because they were cheap. Anyone have any ideas?

Pink.

Coupon-mad wrote:

Hi,
We have loads of blackberries in our garden, but I don't have any recipes so they will go to waste if we can't eat them all fresh.

Can anyone post any recipes, also have some Gala apples (not freebies, Tescos!) the kids have not bothered with yet - or do I have to use cooking apples? As you can tell I do not cook such things usually but am keen to give it a go!

Hi coupon-mad,

You could use the Gala apples and some of the blackberries to make a apple and blackberry pie. There are some recipe for using blackberries on this thread. Or you could bag them and freeze them for using later.

I just did a quick google search and there are loads of recipes for blackberries.

Pink

newleaf

Thanks doddsy! I was hoping for some specific golden cherry plum feedback from the OP but she mustn't be online. I made a crumble with some this evening, they're quite tart so I guess they'll set pretty well.

Coupon-mad

Thankyou for your trouble, Pink-winged :A !

I think I will pick a load of blackberries tomorrow (rained too much today), freeze them and then read the info you've linked here when I get a quiet moment - maybe when the kids are back at school, only 3 weeks to go!

betterbargains4u

Nikki wrote:

Vast quanties of cherry plums and still picking!! Mainly red as the yellow ones are too high to reach, made 6 jars of jam so far. Blackberries,although we have to look around as alot of them are still green around here. DH has come home with a carrier bag full of cooking apples from his brothers OH's garden(her mum doesn't pick them or use them!!). Elderberries so we can make cordial from them and we are waiting for the hazelnuts to ripen as we have hundreds of hazelnut trees in our villlage. I'm always looking to see whats growing on trees just incase it's edible!!

Has anyone got a link to a site that will show me what cherry plums look like?
I think I may have a tree in my garden...but not too sure.

doddsy

betterbargains4u wrote:

Has anyone got a link to a site that will show me what cherry plums look like?
I think I may have a tree in my garden...but not too sure.

http://www-saps.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/trees/cherryp.htm

Is this any help?
regards
doddsy

chloe99_2

didn't need any lemon juice to make my yellow cherry plum jam - infact i think i over boiled it as set is a bit too hard. re stoning - either do it by hand (just squeeze the stone out) messy but quick and effective OR you can put them in whole only the stones won't float off nicely for you to skim - you'll have to fish around with a slotted spoon to get them all out once the fruit has cooked to pulpy texture - bit time consuming but i thought quicker than stoning by hand.