A few weeks ago some neighbours kindly invited us to help ourselves to pears from their tree. When we got to their garden we discovered that they actually had several pear trees and they encouraged us to take far more than would keep fresh. Clearly a method of preservation was in order. I had something in mind, something which I had seen in the always inspiring River Cottage Handbook on Preserves. But when our neighbour informed us that it hadn’t been a particularly good year for her Conference pears, and that they were mostly small and woody, my mind was made up.

Our son thoroughly enjoyed picking the pears, particularly since most were out of his reach, so he had to get on my shoulders to get at them. I also did a little manual labour for our neighbours whilst I was there, after offering to assist them in moving a mound of shingle from one side of the garden to the other. I quite enjoyed that, it gave the whole trade a bit of a cottage economy feel. Our bounty harvested and our neighbours thanked, we left for home where the children tucked into the ripest of the pears and I perused the River Cottage Preserves book to compile a list of ingredients.

Some of the pears (add the odd cooking apple) that we picked from our neighbours’ trees

So, I hear you asking, what was the recipe that you were so eager to try? The recipe was for mulled pears. Pears bottled in cider with cloves and cinnamon, which is essentially a list of my favourite four ingredients combined! I did toy with the idea of using perry instead of cider, but I decided to stick to the recipe this time and consider experimenting next time.

The first stage was to prepare a cider syrup from cider and sugar. Next we peeled the pears using a potato peeler. The pears were then cut in half, studded with a couple of cloves each, packed into jars with a stick of cinnamon and covered with the cider syrup. We then bottled the jars using the oven method. The end product looked gorgeous and we couldn’t wait to try them.

We peeled the pears with a potato peeler ready for bottling.

We didn’t have to wait for long. A couple of weeks later we had friends round and we served the mulled pears after dinner with a little clotted cream. They were greatly enjoyed by all, and I can only imagine the remaining two jars will be even more delicious than the first once they have been allowed to mature a little. Another River Cottage Handbook on Preserves triumph.

A deliciously gorgeous sight: pears mulled in cider

Speaking of the River Cottage Preserves book…

…Our son recently out of the blue asked whether we could go blackberry picking again. I replied that we could, and enquired what he planned to do with the blackberries. His reply? With great excitement he exclaimed ‘fruit leather!’ We first tried the blackberry and apple fruit leather recipe from the River Cottage Preserves book back in August. The children loved it and quickly dubbed it ‘the giant sweetie’. It’s a simple recipe using just blackberries, apples, the juice of a lemon and some honey. The recipe is actually on one of the preview pages on Amazon:
Click to View Preserves (River Cottage Handbook No. 2) on Amazon.co.uk

It’s been a great year for blackberries.

It’s been a great year for blackberries, both the garden and the local hedgerows have been supplying them in abundance. To the point where I can’t help but feel we underutilised them this year, despite our numerous blackberry containing preserves. So we took our son’s suggestion, and dedicated an hour one Saturday afternoon to raiding nature’s larder and assembling our fruit leather ingredients. The next morning our next batch of fruit leather was ready and the children have been enjoying their ‘giant sweetie’ ever since.

Back by popular demand: our latest batch of fruit leather

Which leads me nicely onto a final thought. I recently read an article regarding the nutritional properties of blackberries which extolled their virtues and ranked them as one of the greatest of the so called ‘super foods’. They are high in vitamin C, fibre and an array of antioxidants, many of which are believed to have anti-carcinogenic effects. They don’t get as much publicity as cultivated soft fruits because they are widely available for free, so there’s no commercial incentive.

Reflecting on our fruit leather production in this context got me thinking. We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent as a family out foraging for blackberries, and the process of making the fruit leather was rewarding too. But probably the most significant part of this story is the nutritional qualities of the food we produced, and the fact that our children would be more happy to eat this than the mass produced glucose and gelatine based confectionery that their friends would be more inclined to eat. Isn’t that a lovely thought?