Fruit leather

Damson, apple, grape and fennel fruit leather.

This year, instead of simply drying the damsons as we did last year (see here), we made fruit leather - from damsons and from various combinations.

To make fruit leather, remove all stones, peel and core apples, then put the fruit into a blender and blend until it's as fine as you want it. Pour out onto an oven tray covered with clingfilm a 1/8" to 1/4" layer of the fruit pulp. (Be sure that all stones are removed. If you leave one it will be chopped in the blender into hard, sharp little pieces.)

Place in an oven on very low, about plate-warming temperature, and leave for 24 hours. Peel the drying pulp off the clingfilm and turn it over. Leave for another 12 hours.

Roll it up in the clingfilm and store in the fridge or freezer -

Varying the ingredients -

Apple, banana, honey and toasted oats.

Damson and liquorice, poured after blending soft liquorice and damsons.

Damson and liquorice dried.

Damson and liquorice cut with scissors into strips for eating.

There's more info on fruit leathers and a table of the suitability of various fruits here.

Pickled damsons

The damsons here will be ripe soon. Last year we made damson pickle and damson jam. We also experimented with drying the fruit, after removing the stones.

Dried damsons

We used a non-stick tray and a very low oven to dry the damsons and, a year on, the fruit is still good today. We have planted more stone fruit trees, and are starting to propagate various berry bushes, so we'll likely buy a dehydrator for the job in the future. This will be useful for drying herbs too.

The dried damsons can be reconstituted with boiling water and soaking for use in baking, but they're also good to pop in the mouth like sweets.

Damson pickle

This is the recipe we used for damson pickle. It's an old one, passed on by a local lady some years ago (we halved the quantities):

8 lbs damsons
6 lbs sugar
1/2 oz cloves
1/4 oz cinnamon
1 quart vinegar

First day
Take good ripe damsons and prick well.
Boil vinegar and sugar and spices together and pour over the damsons.

Second day
Pour off the liquid and boil it again. Pour over damsons.

Third day
Repeat process, and if the damsons are not soft, boil all together for a minute or two.

Eat straight away or leave for a month or more to mature. Pickled damsons are great with snacks, just as you'd use any pickle; and the liquid in the jar is delicious and fortifying to drink.

Damson jam

Damson jam is probably the tastiest fruit jam out. It has a lovely strong dark-fruit flavour.

We use the simple recipe of 4 lbs of damsons to 4 lbs of sugar and a 1/4 pint of water.

Boil it all up and stir. Squash the damsons against the side of the pan to remove the stones. Skim the stones off as they collect on the surface.

By the time you've removed all the stones, the jam will be about ready. You can check by seeing how the jam on the pile of stones has set.

Quince flower and fruit

Beautiful aren't they, furry too. This is the first year this tree has flowered, and fruited. So, apart from admiring them, we haven't settled on an end use yet (there are only three fruits this year, though).

Wild strawberry

We have these lovely little strawberries all over the place and they fruit right through the summer. They were started some years ago, grown in a pot by seven-year-old Alex from a packet of seeds. Since then they've multiplied themselves both with runners and with seeds in bird droppings.

Interesting note: Perfectly-shaped strawberries are created only if every single ovary has been pollinated by an insect. (Info here.)