There are two blackcurrant shrubs in my garden. Planted a few years ago, each year they have come up with an increasing number of currants which I observe happily, walk past and then completely forget about. Hopefully the wild birds have made more use of them over the years. This year I was prompted to actually pick the fruit after hearing Simon talk about the currants in his garden (which he uses to make wine - unless the hungry blackbird gets there first). So I gathered mine into a small plastic container, then found another to collect more. I hadn't realised there were so many. I assumed I'd pick them all but would spot another branch of berries shining away. Most were just right for picking. The soft and unripe ones I left behind. The blackbird can have those.
Mum found a recipe on the BBC Good Food website for making blackcurrant jam. It sounded surprisingly easy - where was the catch? We went shopping for ingredients - but all that was needed were blackcurrants (already have those, free of charge), granulated or white caster sugar (we bought granulated), and juice of half a lemon. My parents had a couple of empty jars so we sterilised these first before pouring the finished jam into them at the end.
We washed the blackcurrants and took any remaining stalks off them before tipping the fruit into a saucepan with about 100ml of water. This was brought to the boil and then simmered for five minutes. We left the ingredients to cool slightly.
The recipe says "add 400g of sugar to every 500g of pulp". The sugar is now poured into the pot, followed by the lemon juice. To dissolve the sugar, we heated the saucepan's ingredients gently, stirring all the while. Then we boiled the fruit, lemon juice, water and sugar. After 10 minutes, we had to test for setting point which we did by spooning some onto a cold saucer (we'd put a saucer in the freezer beforehand) and pushing a finger through the jam, waiting to see if the top wrinkles. If so, job done. And happily, our jam was ready and didn't need to be returned to the boil.
Now time to cool down and the jam was then ready to be spooned into our two jars, waiting eagerly for the new arrival.
The recipe we followed was the one below:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/blackcurrant-jam
Blackcurrants are easy to grow, though fiddly to pick. The fruit is of limited use fresh, but makes excellent jam and desserts.
Reader's Digest Short Cuts to Great Gardens
Honeybees and particularly bumblebees visit the flowers for pollen. The fruits are eaten by birds, including thrushes, tits, warblers and blackbirds. The stem structure is ideal for several species of birds to nest in.
The Illustrated Practical Guide To Wildlife Gardening by Christine and Michael Lavelle
Read more: Making blackcurrant jam
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/blackcurrant-jam
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