It's that time of year again...

The time of year when I find myself hunched over a boiling pan of jewel coloured liquid (garnet tonight) frantically trying to read a sugar thermometer through the swirling steam. Yes its finally cool enough to consider making jams,  jellies,  and marmalades again. There's not much that I really like about the autumn but preserving is one of the few things that reconcile me to the end of summer. Time to fall in love with Diana Henry and Pam Corbin all over again.

In the Kitchen

I have good intentions regarding spring cleaning but they never actually amount to very much. Autumn is a different matter - the run up to Christmas is such a big thing in retail that over the years I've developed a real need to feel organised in good time, part of that is a desire to clear the decks of all the past years accumulated crap, another part is settling down to making things ready for Christmas. I know it's only October but now is the time for jam and jelly making - and I've made a lot of it. It's also turned into a big week for baking...

Work asked me to make a cake for the shop's second birthday on Friday - a cake - there are about 150 of us and although not everyone will be around at cake time one was never going to be enough which I maybe ought to have thought of before I said yes. In the end I made four cakes, two got sandwiched together to make a giant chocolate cake, there is a carrot cake because it's my favourite and that's what matters after a couple of hours baking, and a lemon layer cake which tried to escape from it's pan but was just about rescued... Because I was in the kitchen all day and the oven was on I also made jam, some scones for afternoon tea with the Scottish one, roasted a pheasant to share with the blond, and made some Brownies as well. She had to stop me from making short bread too - by that time I was on a roll and didn't want to stop. 

It was, by my standards, a lot to get through in one day, normally my Kitchen would look like a bomb site at this point, but happily the blond took charge and wouldn't let me leave the washing up, she also put everything away so I really do feel organised today which is wonderful (it won't last).

The jam is particularly exciting - it's the Fig and Pomegranate from 'Salt Sugar Smoke' which I've wanted to make since I first opened the book. I think I'll call it Persephone jam though, partly as an homage to Persephone books reaching their 100th title, and partly because the generally Greek and Autumnal feel of figs and pomegranates make it appropriate - mostly though it's because I struggle to spell pomegranate (I try to put in another 'm', spell check changes it to permanganate which baffles me, and the whole thing becomes very stressful) Persephone I'm fine with. 

This is a lovely jam and absolutely worth making, figs in supermarkets are fiendishly expensive but I managed to buy well over a kilo of them for £3 from my local market. It was the end of the day and they were going cheap, normal price is four for a pound which is still considerably cheaper than the supermarket rate, so it's worth shopping around as 400g is roughly nine to ten figs.

  

Salt Sugar Smoke - Diana Henry

Years ago I got a really good book about preserving called, of all things, 'Preserved' by Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton. It's a fantastic book with instructions on how to do everything I could imagine including building your own hot smoker, cold smoker, thing for slow drying stuff, and other stuff I can't even remember. It also had the best recipe for candied oranges I've ever found. However there comes a point in life when you have to admit to yourself that you'll never build a smoker (hot or cold), I reached that point at about the same time a friend started building his so I copied out the orange recipe and passed on the book.

Since then I've been on the look out for something that would take it's place and perhaps be better suited to my actual cooking habits. 'Salt Sugar Smoke' is without doubt that book. Diana Henry's 'Roast Figs Sugar Snow' was an impressive if belated introduction to my newest kitchen heroine but 'Salt Sugar Smoke' is the title that confirms that this is love - the real thing and not just a summer romance. 

As with 'Roast Figs Sugar Snow' the inspiration for recipes come from across the globe and that's always exciting; all those things available on every supermarket shelf that I'm never quite sure what to do with suddenly taking on a world of possibility - it's heady stuff. September is jam month for me, lots of foragable stuff is available in hedgerows or gardens and what I can't find for free is often obtainable at farmers markets so it's fitting that Jam is the subject of the first chapter. There have been no shortage of Jam books published over the last couple of year so I wasn't sure I'd find anything new here, I was wrong. There is a legendary French Jam maker - Christine Ferber; Greengage and Gewürztraminer, Pear and Chestnut, and Blackberry and Pinot Noir jams are all pure Ferber (her inspiration is credited) which saves me having to pay a fortune for her books in translation. I have made the Damson and Gin jam, it's excellent and it's sod's law that this is such a bad year for fruit trees because I could have made gallons of it. 

On the immanent to do list is Fig and Pomegranate jam which I think should be exotic enough to make memorable presents. There is also a Lime and Rum marmalade, and it occurs to me that if I add a bit of mint I'll basically have a Mojito I can put on toast...

After that there are various tempting things that can be preserved in vinegar and oil, and a chapter on hot smoking. Henry uses a wok and recommends stove top smokers which are apparently quite affordable, I might research this, and also how it's likely to react with my smoke detector, I like the idea but don't want the neighbours to hate me. There's also a good section on brining which I've heard about but never done, as all I really need to do with that is plan ahead it's got to be worth trying. I have other long held ambitions regarding successfully curing herring (I've already done it unsuccessfully) and making my own gravlax - there are recipes for both which look good.

After the jams though the real draw for me in this collection comes in the chapter on 'Cordials, Alcohols, Fruits and Spoon Sweets' specifically Alcohols. It's not to late to make sloes in apple brandy (liqueur de blosses) which sounds wonderful - more mellow than gin or vodka, and if it's more expensive, well it will be correspondingly special. This is also the best possible time for making Russian Plum Liqueur - both would be ready in time for Christmas but that's not nearly all... 

There are a handful of recipes that constitute the absolute last word in luxury preserving - prunes in armagnac with vanilla, prunes in a mix of rum, eau de vie and monbazillac, and perhaps best of all apricots in muscat; I can picture them now; glowing dried apricots plumped up in luscious, golden, sticky wine. They take about a month to be ready and will keep for a year. Some times food columnists talk about how handy it is to have crumble ingredients or the like prepped in the freezer for those times when unexpected guests come round and you simply must have an emergency pudding. I've never found myself with that problem but if I did I'd rather whip out some apricots in muscat and a decent pot of yoghurt than defrost something nameless from the back of the freezer. Seriously this has to be a contender for best cookbook of the year. 

    

Domestic Sunday

I had meant to spend a good chunk of today writing about 'Can You Forgive Her' but opted to make jam, shop, and catch up with a friend instead. There were also scones. And after all Trollope will wait, both he and the book demand a wholehearted and proper job to do them justice.

Beryl Wood's 'Let's Preserve It' was a Christmas present from mum which I was really enthusiastic about at the time but hadn't used at all until now, however last years jam has all but run out and although soft fruit isn't cheap (or flavourful) enough yet pineapples are looking good. The Scottish one teases me about my pineapple obsession - I love them, really love them, but haven't tried cooking them much, Wood had a jam recipe and I had a lot of pineapple (is 4 an unusual amount to have round the house?) so I thought I'd have a go.

There are a couple of really good things about this little book, I like that it's arranged as an A-Z in the manner of a mini preserving encyclopaedia (there are 579 recipes crammed in a really quite small book), I also like that some of the more exotic recipes are for quite small amounts - my jam made 3 jars which is more than enough to be going on with (and let me use my favourite copper pan rather the usual iron monster I can hardly lift). On the downside is that it's aimed squarely at people who know exactly what they're doing - let me quote the jam recipe in full:

2lb pineapple (when prepared), 1 1/2 lb sugar, 1/4 pint water. peel pineapple, remove hard core, cut in cubes; do this on a plate to catch as much juice as possible; put sugar and water in pan, simmer till dissolved and just syruping, add pineapple, cook to set.

 Elegant in it's simplicity I'm sure you'll agree, but I wouldn't really mind a bit more instruction. I couldn't find any indication of how much pectin pineapples contain so I used half and half jam making sugar and added a bit of lemon juice which turned out to be a good idea because without it the jam would have been far to sweet. I should also have used a sugar thermometer, I got impatient and may have been a bit hasty about deciding I'd reached setting point. Now it's cool it's still a bit runny - I think that's okay though, the flavour is good and it's going to make a great filling in a victoria sponge. It's excellent with scones (if messy). However it's a thoroughly inspiring book and one I mean to use a lot more albeit with fingers crossed I'm doing it right.

The shopping part of the day was even more exciting - my friend L insisted (I may have encouraged her a little) that we go to a garden centre, and just when I was in the middle of a rant about searching high and low over the last couple of years for scented geraniums with absolutely no luck at all it turned out I was standing next to a table full of them. I can't begin to say how pleased I was - also they were only £1.99 each , I have lemon and rose scented ones now, my friend's choice smelt of cola (it really did). Potentially very exciting additions for all sorts of recipes and pretty too.  

The call of the kitchen.

My mother called me earlier (as I was walking past a jewellers, which is appropriate as she’s the kind of glamorous blonde who can smell out a diamond at fifty paces, and can clearly sense her daughters proximity to same) and after discussing plans for the weekend which involved such unlikely phrases as ‘I might want to leave a shotgun under your bed’ she said she thought I should write about something other than books for a change. So Just for my mum (and not because she’s apparently armed) I’m going to write about cake, okay so it’s not much of a change, but it is a particularly good cake.

I found the recipe in Nigella Lawson’s ‘Feast’ which is also where the Guinness cake (although I prefer my sisters much more chocolaty version) hailed from. It’s definitely thanks to said sisters very impressive culinary efforts that I’ve revisited this book which despite my being a general Nigella fan is not one I turn to often, probably because I seldom get to cook for large numbers of people and ‘Feast’ suggests a crowd. There’s a lesson in this for me about not judging a book by its cover (or title), or even in judging a recipe by the section it comes under.

The item in question is ‘Rosemary Remembrance Cake’ which I found under funeral feasts, and I was inclined towards making it because I liked the Victorian connotations of anything to do with the language of flowers. (It was partly an homage to Cornflower after her picture challenge, and also because she does such a wonderful line in recipe and book matching.) Anybody who knows me will find it hard to believe that chocolate cake is not necessarily my favourite, but it’s true, and I think this is one of the best cakes I’ve ever made.

Most like a Madeira cake it turned out a lovely mixture of moist and springy on the inside, with a sugar crunchy top. The rosemary flavour isn’t in the least overpowering, but does make it a great cake to have with tea. It’s also made me want to experiment some more with flavoured sugars, I think a subtly rosemary flavoured syrup would turn this into an amazing drizzle cake. Anyway without further ado this is the Link to the recipe – I did nothing to change it, and if mine was only almost as pretty as the one in the picture it was still a mighty handsome cake. Now back to the kitchen for me – I’m off to make jam before the fruit flies descend on the bargain raspberries I got on the market today, and before my will to sterilise jars totally disappears. It’s a favourite of my mum’s and I want to keep her happy...

Sunday Off

And then back to the day job in the morning, working on Saturday is a pain sometimes not least because I’ve tried to pack in two days worth of household activity into the part of Sunday left after waking up late. I’ve shopped, made jam, baked a cake, cooked a chicken, sorted out laundry (ok so I gathered all the clean laundry from its drying perches and dumped it on my bed which has promptly disappeared, and I still have to actually sort it but at least I Made A Start) finished a book, and created more washing up than I could have believed possible. I still have to do another load of washing, catch up with the Scottish one, wash my hair, and excavate my bed. I will be exhausted by the time I go back to work tomorrow.

The cake baked is a chocolate Guinness cake, not my sister’s version but the original Nigella version from ‘Feast’. I wanted to be sure which was best, and although the Nigella one rises beautifully and is commendably light and fluffy, it lacks the dense black chocolaty richness that makes my clever little sister’s one so good and which gave it a real Guinnessy feel.

The jam is cherry and redcurrant, made with the cherries I picked on Thursday and so far I’m not very happy with it. Such a shame because the cherries were so lovely – plump, juicy, scarlet and burgundy coloured jewels and the jam seems a bit like wallpaper paste. This is my second attempt at cherry jam and I seem destined to fail with it.

The last lot I made a year ago with cherries from my mother’s tree, the recipe said sugar, so I used sugar – ordinary granulated sugar. I have not yet forgotten the two hours spent pitting cherries, or the mess it made, or the further hours spent trying to get a bubbling cauldron of blood red goo to set. It wouldn’t set and wouldn’t set and finally I had to heed the call of nature. Gone for not more than a minute after an eternity of waiting and the whole lot has caramelised into a thick toffee mess (If I can’t spread it on a croissant – which I can’t, it does make an acceptable addition to brownie mix) so I added a not to my recipe – PECTIN.

Today – cherries lovingly pitted (leaving my apron, kitchen table, and self looking like extras in a slasher film), redcurrants de stalked and all softening up nicely I add what I think is a carefully worked out weighed and measured quantity of pectin infused jam sugar. The moment it hits the pan it becomes clear there is far, far too much of it and that redcurrants are little pectin bombs which negate the use of special sugar. Bugger.

I’ll reserve judgement until It’s all cooled down and I’ve tried it, but so far I’ve never seen a stickier denser jammier jam and I’m not feeling very optimistic – although at least it’s not burned this time... The price of cherries being what they are I won’t be having another go until next year, and then only if I can get a free crop – hopefully third time will be a charm, but in the meantime I’m going to have cherries as nature intended – straight, unadorned and in no way fiddled with.