Hawthorn Berry

[cccc]

I saw the posting about fruit this year being early, so on a stroll I was looking out and along with some promising Blackberry bushes I saw a lot of fruit on the Hawthorns.

I then went home to find the Wild Food / Ray Mears episode, where he mushed some up and dryed it.

Anyone tried this ? Whats it like ? When will the fruit be ready to pick to try this ?

Cheers

c

 

[john scrivy]

Ive not tried rays resip my self yet but Im going to When will they be ready to pick my guess is when the berry is nice and soft and sweet I am also going to have a go at Hawthorn brandy using the same prinsipleused in making slow gin am going to give that one a go as well I hope your mashed up hawthorth turns out edible

 

[xylaria]

They are abit on the hard side at the moment. If you pound the softer fresh fruit or the cooked fruit the seeds seperate easly. Seive works better than a jam bag. The fruit works like it is very high in pectin, and I will add it to any jams that wont set. The fruit paste starts to set as it is coming out of the sieve it has that much pectin in it. I have never tried the ray mears fruit leather as the program came out after the haw season.

 

[fredohyeah]

i want to try this
will post as soon as i do

 

[Dougster]

I have - go for the darker fruit. It was a consumate success until I dried them, I didn't slice it anywhere thin enough. I would advise drying it on a raised thin mesh in a warm dry place - out in the sun if you can.

Mine was too thick and on a flat surface, which meant that the fruit sweated and formed a mould - too bad by the time I found where SWMBO had moved it. I will do it again as initial tasting was promising.

 

[Matt Weir]

Every day I go out and I try a berry but still find even the ripe ones are pretty bitter/sour. Can I expect the processing to change this?

 

[Dougster]

The ones I tried were on a SW facing slope and raw tasted just like under ripe apples - as described by his nibs.

They were really light green inside but the same colour as RMs on the Wild Food prog when I had spent three hours squeezing and sifting (don't do this over a carpet - I got a roasting for making a hell of a mess).

 

[Stew]

How was the initial taste of the processed stuff Dougster?

I was discussing this today with someone, as I find the taste of a Haw quite bland and it was suggested that the processing RM did may concentrate flavour.

 

[Chester`C]

If you go to amazon there are a few good books in there and cheap too with recipes in for hawthorn jam Here these are handy little pocket sized books ideal for out and about I also purchased the Gem tree id, mushrooms and wildflowers although the food for free ID's all the edible mushrooms aswell

 

[xylaria]

I have tried doing fruit leather with hawthorne over the weekend. I am sure it went wrong. I softened them by simmering with the stalks not removed and the final result tastes of tannin. I have made jam with them before and the fruit pulp didn't taste like tannin. So i did something wrong.

I will get some more and process them fresh without simmering, they are getting soft enough to process from fresh fruit. I will mash them up with my hands and then seive. It did dry out very quickly far faster than other fruit leathers.

 

[Bushpig]

Hi folks,

I'd like to go find some hawthorns myself, I may make some Jam but I am very interested in this hawthorn/fruit leather. I have not seen the episode, would someone elaborate for me?

Bushpig

 

[Matt Weir]

Hi folks,

I'd like to go find some hawthorns myself, I may make some Jam but I am very interested in this hawthorn/fruit leather. I have not seen the episode, would someone elaborate for me?

Bushpig

The basic idea is to gather a bagful of hawberrys, squish them through a sieve to remove skin and stone the once the resulting pulp has set, slice it thinly and dry it out.

 

[Bushpig]

Ty Matt, I'll get to it then

 

[bartjen 2]

the best thing with hawthorn is to let it hang till it has frozen one night th en they become mutch better to make jam