Recipe By : BBC Good Food, October 1996
Serving Size : 1 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Fruit Preserves
Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
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1 kg Cooking apples
600 g Blackberries
4 Unwaxed oranges
4 Unwaxed lemons
300 ml Cranberry juice
1 ts Juniper berries -- crushed
1 1/8 kg Caster sugar
Roughly chop the apples, peel and core included. Place in a preserving
pan with the blackberries. Peel the skin from the oranges and discard;
chop the flesh. Squeeze the juice from the lemons. Add the orange flesh,
lemon juice, and skins to the pan. Pour over the cranberry juice and add
the juniper berries; bring gently to the boil. Continue to boil quite
hard for 25 minutes until the fruit is soft and pulpy.
Remove the lemon skins and leave to cool; then squeeze the lemon pulp
into the mixture and discard the skins. Push all the pulp through a fine
nylon sieve and weigh; weigh out three-quarters of this measurement in
sugar.
Place the pulp and sugar in a pan and dissolve the sugar over a low
heat. Increase the heat and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 15
minutes until set; stir often, making sure you mix in the scum as this
is where the pectin is. When setting point is reached, and not before,
skim off and discard the scum, then pot the butter into jars.
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Notes: To find out how much sugar to use you must first weigh the pulp.
Three-quarters of this weight is the amount of sugar you add. This
recipe yielded 1.5 kg / 3 lb 5 oz pulp, so 1.125 kg / 2 lb 8oz sugar was
used. A fruit butter is a jelly made with the pulp and juice rather than
just the juice and sugar. Spread on scones and bread, or serve with cold
pork and crispy crackling or at the end of a meal with cream cheese.
