The Cottage Smallholder

Brilliant result - jam is delicious and dare I say it even better than last years Damson only jam

It has a really rich deep red colour and is just so scrummy.

I used 500g damsons, 500g bramleys, 900g sugar.

Now to tackle those pesky quinces

Aly, you make quince jelly don't you? I'm in two minds of what to do with this first batch as not used quinces before.

I put 2.5lbs of my quinces (which we think are the Japanese ornamental variety) into my steamer and got some juice but not a massive amount - they did look quite dry inside.

However the juice does tend to be very concentrated when extracting this way and the texture is very syrupy so I could add some water or apple juice to it to make it go a bit further but worried it might spoil the quince flavour.

I also sieved the remaining pulp and have a large bowl of it so I'm now wondering if I should make quince jam by either mixing the pulp back with the juice or maybe adding apple juice to the pulp. I am keen to have some jelly but don't mind making jam if theres not enough juice to make jelly with.

I only have about 400ml of juice and normally I would use around 1200ml to make some jelly - so I'm torn as to what to do with the juice & pulp.

How muh juice would you normally use to make some jelly and have you ever made the jam version?

Thanks ladies, I was bit worried I would lose quince flavour. I do have another 2.5 lbs of Quinces on the way so will steam or boil/strain those and add to juice I already have - it might make a couple of jars. I think it was Hattie who noticed they looked a bit dry when I posted a photo of one cut in half. They probably should have been used as soon as picked but as we hadn't had them before I thought they needed to ripen up  Well at least I now know they are the Japanese quinces and probably not the best variety for jelly and the good news is that a farm shop nearby is selling Quinces so if they haven't already been snapped up I might be lucky and get some nice ones.

Hope you both have a lovely weekend - whats left of it and that the rain stays away for you. Not too bad in our part of Kent this morning