Our Autumn Bliss raspberries are producing enormous quantities of raspberries. We’ve been eating them fresh but I decided we would try something a little different with them. This is called a fruit leather.
I made it with raspberries, cooking apples and honey, and dried it on the oven for a good few hours. It’s called a leather because it has the feel and flexibility of leather when it’s ready. And it is truly delicious. It tastes like a really fruity sweet, and our kids devoured this whole sheet between them. Apparently you can keep it for 5 months in an airtight container, but there’s no way it would ever last that long in our house.
We also had some raspberries that I had picked on a rather damp day. They needed picking and I couldn’t wait any longer for the sun. As they wouldn’t keep very long, we thought we’d be totally decadent and juice them. We used a juicer (that we’d been given) and this was the result.
We added a little orange juice to the juice which thinned it down a bit and mellowed the flavour just a touch. I have to say we weren’t that impressed with the juicer. It seemed very wasteful and there was a lot of washing up afterwards. Next time I think I’ll just use the blender and a sieve to get the pips out. Sometimes old fashioned is better!
Our autumn fruiting raspberries are in full flow. This is their first year and we are already amazed at just how many they are producing. It really is worth growing just a few raspberry canes if you’ve got the space. They’ve already more than paid for themselves in the amount of raspberries we’ve picked, and it is so nice having your own delicious fresh fruit in the garden. They are so tasty that only half of them seem to make it into the bowl when we’re picking them. At the moment, we’re just eating them fresh, and the kids are taking them to school in their lunchboxes. They’ve also made some yummy raspberry smoothies (banana, milk and raspberries blitzed together). The thing I really like about growing your own is that you can be truly extravagant. You can’t do that with expensive shop bought fruit!
Raspberry jam has got to be about the easiest to make. Weigh your raspberries first, and use the same quantity of sugar (in our case 1.4kg of each). Then simmer the raspberries on their own for about 10 minutes until soft. Then add the sugar and stir now and again until all dissolved (which is important), then boil rapidly. I start testing for a set after about 10 minutes (some books say 30mins but ours would be rock solid by then!). Put a little of the jam on a cold plate that you’ve had in the freezer. Stick in the fridge for a minute. Then take the plate out and push the jam with your finger. If it wrinkles then it’s ready, if it doesn’t then give it another 3 minutes or so before repeating the test. Whilst you’re doing all this sterilise your jars and lids by putting them in a low oven for about 20 minutes. Put the jam in the jars whilst still hot, and tighten the lids (it’s worth having a 
for this bit). I ended up with nine jars of beautiful bright red jam, and a spoonful or two as a small taster to have on my toast the following morning. The colour and flavour were both so fresh, and it really was delicious. The other great thing about making your own is that you know exactly what has gone into the jam, just raspberries and sugar and nothing else.
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