Yum!! Almond & homemade damson jam slice, ever so nice!!

Almond & damson slice

 When I was squirrelling away the blackcurrant jam I made the other day, I found a jar of homemade damson jam.  Wahey!!  Treasure!  A recipe was calling me - almond and damson slice, which has a topping made with meringue & ground almonds, and is delicious!!  You can, if you are in a coconut mood, substitute a good dessicated coconut for the almonds, which is in my opinion, even nicer!! 

Here how I did it -

Preheat your oven at 170 fan. you need an 11x7 inch tray, lined with baking paper

Base ingredients
100g butter
200g SR flour
50g caster sugar
2 egg yolks

Topping ingredients
about 8 tbsp (most of a jar!) jam, I like blackcurrant with the coconut, and damson works well with the almond.
3 egg whites
100g caster sugar
200g dessicated coconut OR 200g ground almonds

- base first, rub butter into flour, add sugar, egg yolks and 2 tbsp cold water, and press into the tin
- spread lots of lovely jam all over the base, and dont be mean with it!!
- whisk egg whites to hard peaks, fold in the sugar and whichever nut you are using, and spread over the jam
- some flaked almonds on top of the almond version looks nice.
Bake for about 20 - 25 mins until golden makes about 21 squares. Enjoy!

Smells amazing!!

    And whilst I was waiting for this to bake, I made a quick batch of bread dough in the KitchenAid (Betty). I used sesame oil in the dough, and brushed some on top of each bun before they went into the oven.  Here it is, fresh from the oven, wish I could let you smell it too!!

Lots & lots of blackcurrants!!!

Huge blackcurrants

  In my back garden I have 2 blackcurrant bushes, which  have decided to give me a bumper crop of blackcurrants this year. I do mean bumper, I picked 2.5 kg of berries this morning, and the biggest ones were ginormous!!

Lots & lots of jam!

I love homemade jam, particularly blackcurrant as because of its high pectin content, you can add much less sugar and it will still set. I use a ratio of fruit to sugar of 1:1, but reserve about 1/4 of the fruit until the very end of the process, so each jar has lovely whole berries mixed in.  I don't add any water, just allow the fruit and sugar to heat together, and all the natural juice dissolves the sugar. No added water means no need to boil it for ages to achieve a good set, just a good rolling boil for 5 minutes, add the reserved whole berries, allow to come back to the boil and then take off the heat and pot up. (Fruit such as strawberries have less pectin so for those I use sugar with added pectin, and a squeeze of lemon juice too)

Look who nearly got made into jam!!  Teeny tiny snail!!

  I also produced some homemade Ribena, by boiling up equal amounts of berries, water and sugar until the berries have broken down. Then it was sieved, and poured into bottles. This will be kept in the fridge for the short time it takes my menfolk to drink it all!! ~ it is lovely!!