Blackcurrant jelly has a lovely sharp flavour. Rather than a jam I made this into a jelly. I find the blackcurrant skins can be a little tough sometimes so I prefer to sieve them out. I am lucky enough to have a jelly strainer, if you do not have one that is not a problem just pass the cooked fruit through a colander to take out the large pieces and then pour the liquid through a sieve to remove the smaller pieces of fruit to achieve a smooth jam.

Jam making is all about proportions and ratios. You can never be 100% sure how much fruit you will get to make jam with and you want to use all the fruit up.

This is the proportions I use, you just need to scale it up or down depending on the amount of fruit you have.

You will need:

• 1kg Blackcurrants
• 750ml Water

After cooking the fruit:

• Sugar (for every 1ml of juice add 1g of sugar)

Method:

• Weigh your Blackcurrants
• Wash the Blackcurrants. make sure you have removed all the leaves, but it is not necessary to remove all the storks.
• Put the fruit into a large heavy based pan and add the correct proportion or water.
• Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour.
• I like to mash the fruit with a potato masher to help get all the juice and flavour out.
• Pour into your jelly strainer or sieve, allow to drain for about 12hours or overnight.
• Give the jelly bag a good squeeze to get every drop of juice you can out of the fruit.
• Measure the fruit and for every 1ml of juice you will need 1g of sugar. So for 500ml of juice you will need 500g of sugar.
• Transfer the juice back into your heavy based pan with the sugar.
• Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 – 30mins. The more jelly you are making the longer you will need to simmer for.
• Test the jelly for setting.
• Tip: Setting point – You can tell when your jelly/jam has reached setting point by dripping a small amount onto a saucer and popping into the fridge for a couple of minutes, when the jelly is set it will wrinkle when pushed with your finger tip.
• Pour into sterilised jars.
• Tip: Sterilizing the jars is easy, I wash them up, dry them then bake in an oven at 100degrees for 15-20mins. Pour the hot jelly into the jars while the jars are hot and fresh out the oven.
• Tip: Sterilizing lids is super easy too, after washing up (and a couple of minutes before you require them), I pour freshly boiled water into the lids. Empty the boiled water as you place them on the filled jars.
• Label and enjoy!