Damson Jam

Last weekend we made some damson jam.
I managed to leave work early for the first time in ages so I drove over to mum and dad’s farm to pick some fruit.
As well as picking up a massive bag of russet apples I also managed to come back with two huge bags of damsons. I love eating these raw but one of my favourite childhood memories is eating rich damson jam (that’s as solid as rock) on hot cross buns, so I thought it was about time I dug out the old recipe book and made some.

I could get just about 2.5Kg of fruit in two saucepans and stewed it down, before I read in the instructions that I’m to try and remove as many pips as possible. This turned out to be a massive task and I think I spent the best part of an hour using every appliance in the kitchen to try to find an easy way of removing them, in the end I used a potato masher to try and push the flesh through a colander and picked out any pips that may have escaped (I'm still putting a disclaimer on the jar though!).

I then weighed the mixture again and added an equal quantity of sugar and boiled it until setting point was reached (where it wrinkles when placed on a cold plate and you push your finger through it).I had some jars warming in the oven and a plastic funnel (can believe I don’t normally use a funnel!) to help get as much as possible in the jar.
In the end we made 11½ jars and if I do say so myself it tastes pretty good!