First fruits

Blackberries, apples, pears, walnuts. Sounds like autumn but we're definitely not there yet. We were down at the Bach on the weekend and picked several cups of blackberries around the section. Of course they are a terrible weed, but in fruiting season I can forgive them, unlike ivy which is a year-round abomination with delusions of grandeur. I claim.

Also picked at the weekend: apples from our columnar Bolero trees planted winter before last. These are first fruits from those trees and they are encouragingly good eating! Too good for jam. I did put one in the blackberry buckle (of which more below.)

I snagged a couple of windfalls from a disregarded tree on the vacant section next door. And to round out the jam, pears and walnuts from roadside stands in Gordonton and Karapiro respectively.

300g blackberries
100 ml water
1 medium apple
1 medium pear
Handful shelled walnuts
300g sugar

Simmer the blackberries in water til soft. Rub through a sieve. Add the walnuts and simmer til also soft. Now add the other fruit and, again, simmer til soft. Add the sugar and boil hard until setting point. Makes about 2 cups, so I didn't bother processing for long storage. Around here, it will be lucky to last out the week!

Lithuanian Apple Cheese

The Poole plate looks enough like Crown Lynn Colourglaze to satisfy me, though a purist will spot that it's not the real thing (irony alert!) A slice of apple cheese shaped in a terrine, and that's a chunk of Tinui ewe's milk blue from the wonderful Kingsmeade Cheese in the Wairarapa.

I have been making this for a long time, but only every couple of years. Use it like quince paste, to serve with cheese or just as a sweetmeat. The recipe comes from Lithuanian Traditional Foods (Yowza! I paid a lot less than USD195 for my copy!) You can halve the quantities, but it keeps for ages. It makes less than you'd think - say a kilo and a half?

Recipe:
Peel and thinly slice 5 kg apples. You must use apples that keep their shape well while cooking, or the end product will be yucky and mushy, where you want it to be firm enough to slice.

Combine the apple with 1.5 kg sugar and let sit, covered, for 48 hours.

Strain, retaining the liquid. In a large pot, reduce the liquid by half.

Add 3/4 of the apple slices and cook until there is no liquid remaining. The apple slices will turn to apple sauce, and the whole thing should be dark red or amber like apple jelly. Stir it very frequently (you could experiment with a slow cooker here.)

Add the rest of the apple and a teaspoon or more of spice. The book says cinnamon - cardamom is amazing too, and I could also imagine that orange zest plus clove would be good. Cook until the last of the apple is soft and well cooked through but still pale in colour.

Dampen a cheese bag or an old tea towel. Put all the apple stuff in it, tie it closed and weight it heavily for 48 hours. Keep it covered, you can use the stuff that drains off - this is basically apple jelly, but I would use it quite quickly rather than storing it.

Put in an airy place to dry. In humid places this probably means the fridge or hot water cupboard. Store cool and dry.

Note:
I have also experimented with making smaller 'loaves' of the cheese and this works well. Line a ceramic terrine with damp muslin, fill with apple mixture and fold the cloth over the top. Cover a piece of cardboard with a plastic bag and put that over the top. Turn upside down onto a couple of cans. Weight the top (that's the underside of the terrine) with a few big heavy cans. Drain for two days, dry and store.