I grew up in a world where as a child I was often sent down the road with a basket of eggs and a loaf of bread to give to a neighbour who would then fill up my basket with home-grown vegetables. I love that kind of trading amazing home-made and homegrown produce. It warms my heart that even in this modern age, if you live in the right place and have the right friends and neighbours then  these traditions are still very much commonplace.

A couple of days ago, one of my lovely new neighbours asked me if I’d like some of her red currant glut. To be honest, I have never had much to do with these as a fruit but how could I refuse? Anything grown organically with love and care has to be worshipped and used and never wasted! So accepted very gratefully and took a lesson from her on how to make a jelly.

Jellies are always something that have scared me, I am much more the throw it all in one pot and bubble it for a couple of hours chutney kind of girl. Anything that takes 24 hours I have veered away from previously but I think as I’ve got older and wiser, I have realised that the best things really do come to those who wait!

So I came home and the red currants were put into a pan and covered with water to boil. I think I made a bit of a mistake here misread the recipe slightly and rather than simmering for 20 minutes I actually boiled. Oops. It meant I had a very concentrated liquid and not very much of it. Lesson one.

I actually already have a jelly bag which I bought a few years ago for making flavoured vinegars so was pleased to find I had all the kit required and placed the red currants and their juice through this and left overnight.

In the morning, I was pleased to find that although I didn’t have a huge amount of liquid, what I did have looked good. I had around only 200ml but mixed this with an equal quantity of white granulated sugar and boiled for eight minutes in a large saucepan. It couldn’t have been simpler! 

Then it was just a case of pouring through the jam funnel into ajar. I only ended up with two jars but what I have is packed with flavour and just beautiful so I am chuffed to pieces.

Following on from my red currant success, I decided to try a chilli jelly recipe. While at the same neighbour’s house, we were looking through a recipe book and I spied a picture of a chilli jelly which caught my eye as it looked like a snowstorm, just beautiful, and I thought I have to make this! So I took a photo of the recipe and came home, two days later here I am, I’ve just finished it and I cannot explain how beautiful these jars look!

I bought two big fresh cooking apples from my farm shop and chopped roughly, skin, core, pips and all, everything into the pot. I covered with 3 pints of water and brought to the boil and then simmered for 30 minutes until the apples were really pulpy.

I then popped everything into the jelly bag on the stand and left overnight.

Do not wiggle, do not jiggle, do not squeeze, do not touch, do not pass go, do not collect £200. I cannot emphasise enough at this point how much you must not touch the jelly bag otherwise your liquid will be cloudy. 

The recipe called for 450 g of sugar to every 600ml of liquid, I find this far easier to just multiplied by 0.75, that’s how my brain works. I had 1.2 L of juice so used 900g of sugar. The juice and sugar went into a large preserving pan and were brought to the boil, once the sugar had completely dissolved, I boiled it for 20 minutes until set point had been reached at 105°.

I then added in two heaped teaspoons of dried chillies and allowed the mixture to cool slightly for 10 minutes before ladelling through a jam funnel into warm sterilised jars. I could not be more pleased with the result!

So I can now confirm that jellies on nothing to be scared of, in fact quite the opposite, they are really rather simple. 

I’m now deciding what to make next!