Sloe Jelly

I don't think I've ever seen so many sloes around. The gin is maturing nicely at the back of the cupboard and I've still succombed to the temptation of picking them.

I once made a sloe cobbler by accident, well when they are frozen they look very much like large blackcurrants! That is not a mistake I will make again - now I label bags of fruit  but my guests were very nice about it!

So no more cobblers. I cams across a recipe for sloe jelly the other day so I thought I'd give it a go. I've never done this before so it is a bit of an experiment.

My jelly bag will take up to 4lbs of fruit and coincidently that is about the weight of the sloes I have!

 

• 4lbs of sloes
• 1pt of water

First pick over the sloes removing any withered ones and any stalks and leaves. Place is a large pan  ( I used my preserving pan with a pint of water and cook gently for 30-40 minutes until the fruit is soft and the juice flowing.

Place the pulp in a jelly bag and leave to drain through- I left it overnight. Although it is very tempting to hurry things up by pushing it through with a spoon this will give a cloudy jelly. You need patience for a nice clear sparkly one.

It does look a bit Heath Robinson - they've changed the style of the stand and the new bags don't fit! The juice was worryingly cloudy even without squeezing but I decided to carry on.






 Once the juice has been collected, add 4lbs of sugar and boil until setting point is reached. Pour into warmed sterilised jars and cover and seal. This was where I started to worry about my recipe. I had just over 1pt of juice and 4lb of sugar seemed far too much.

I decided to revert to the more usual 1pt of juice to 1lb of sugar and I'm very glad I did! No idea what was going through the head of the original recipe writer unless they had jam using the whole fruit in mind? Well whatever. 

The  revision worked brilliantly and I now have two jars of  delicious sparkling dark red jelly. I was expecting the astringency of the sloes to come through but it really doesn't ( I sampled a bit when testing for the set!).

I will definitely be doing this again!

Sloe Gin

At the white horse last week, the first sloes were ripe, very early for sloes and they are better after a frost but I couldn't resist picking some to top up the sloe gin stocks.

It didn't take long to pick the couple of handfuls needed leaving plenty on the blackthorns for another day. As usual we got the curious looks of other walkers but  unusually no one asked what we were picking.  Sloes are one of the great unrecognised hedgerow  fruits, not popular I guess as they are too bitter to eat raw. Leaves all the more for the rest of us then!

So home to make gin. I left them in a warm kitchen to ripen a little more before using and I could I guess have put them in the freezer for a little to simulate frost but I didn't bother this time.


  
  So for sloe gin:

• Bottle of gin - I use a mid quality gin, it isn't worth using the very expensive gins but the cheap "value" ones are harsh especially if you only plan to let it mature for a short time
• Sugar  - ordinary granulated is fine
• Sloes   

Firstly  empty the gin into a jug ( unless you have a suitable bottle already empty of course)
Rinse the sloes removing any stalks or leaves and prick each one with a skewer.

Pour the sugar into the bottle until it is 25-30% full. I like mine less sweet so I  use the lesser amount.

Add approximately a third of a bottle of sloes, I tend to be generous but it depends on how many you have

Top up with the gin, screw the lid back on tightly and shake well

Leave the bottle in a convenient place and shake regularly until all the sugar has dissolved. This may take a couple of days if you've used a lot of sugar.






Once all the sugar has dissolved the bottle can be put away to mature. How long you leave it is up to you. Around 3 months is the minimmum but the longer the better really. The bottle above is 4 years old and the bright pinky red drink has softened and mellowed like a tawny port.