Summer's lease hath all too short a date

The raw materials
Originally uploaded by mefinx

You have to admit, it looks pretty disgusting. This is what it looks like when you boil a load of green apples and quinces for an hour or so. The next picture will make things clearer, however:

The next stage is to put this mess into a bag, hang said bag over a jelly-making frame (available from Lakeland Limited), put a bowl underneath and wait several hours for the bowl to fill with juice - resisting the urge to squeeze, which apparently makes the final product cloudy.

Is it just me, or is the juxtaposition of that shape and the warning "Don't squeze" inclined to make you think rude thoughts?

Anyway, if you're lucky, after six hours or so you will end up with something like this:



The next step is to put the precious liquid into a pan and boil it up with a sprig of rosemary. Then you leave it to infuse a while, come back and add wine vinegar and a lot of warmed sugar. This is the point at which inexperienced jam makers are apt to panic a little (well, I am). You know, where the book says, "Boil until a set is reached." If you don't boil for long enough the result is runny mess, if you overdo things it's caramel, and there's a certain amount of trial and error involved. Eventually this matures into experience, but I don't do this sort of thing frequently enough to feel confident yet.

Anyway, by luck or by good management I eventually ended up with two little jars of a gorgeous coppery jelly, and I'm told it's excellent with lamb. Time will tell whether it was worth the hours of work involved.

I asked my daughter to help with photographing the end product. I was shocked by her trickery - she actually filled a jar with coloured water and stuck it in while I was wittering in my precious way about aesthetics and translucent effects. I suppose she'll be one of those awful food stylists when she grows up.

I didn't make the liqueur either, but it's a lovely bottle. And I did grow everything myself.