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Probably, less than 80 feet away from our front door, is a 'fruit' lane. It has haws, hips, elderberries and a few damsons. If you like to decorate your room with wild hops (the smell of them drying is wonderful), it has some of those as well!
We have been keeping an eye on a few damsons, and decided to pick them as the odd one or two were falling off. We managed to get just under 2lb with only one nettle sting each this time!
They needed a good sort through as quite a few had little holes in them (plum sawfly we presume) and occasionally, a little maggot crawled out. We were left with just enough (plus 4 mirabelle plums) to make some damson and orange jam. You will need:
The zest and juice of two oranges. Make the juice up to 240ml with water.
1lb 10oz of damsons
1lb 8oz sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
20 shakes of a bottle of lemon juice concentrate or 1/2 a lemon
Put the damsons, cinnamon, lemon juice, orange zest, orange juice made up with water, into a preserving pan or other large thick bottomed saucepan.
Bring to a simmer and simmer until the damsons are cooked and the stones are working loose, maybe 20 to 30 minutes.
I then tip it all into a
nylon sieve and push it hard to extract the pulp and juice, which is put back into the pan. Then tip the gunk in the sieve onto a large plate and sort through it to remove the stones but keep any bits of damson and skin, which go back into the pan.
Add the sugar and stir until dissolved, then boil rapidly until set. I found no longer than 10 minutes but it may vary.
Pour into hot, sterilised jars and put caps on straight away. This amount makes about 2lb but I put mine into 4 old pate jars.
The smell of this cooking is divine and the orange and cinnamon give it something extra which you can't really identify but know something else is in it. It has a slightly tart edge to it but we don't like jam that is too sickly sweet.
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