With all the damsons out this year, and our recent look at how to make damson wine, I thought we would delve a bit into the classic English fruit tree, which is the damson tree and see what other delights we could rustle up with a fresh picking on damson fruits namely damson jam. Damson jam is a bit of a classic, less sweet than strawberry and raspberry jam, nevertheless a lovely unique taste.
Damson fruits are should be ready to be picked at this time of year (some areas mature quicker than others). You will know if they are ready because they will come away from the tree easily when gently pulled. The fruit itself should be firmish, but not hard when squeezed gently. The fruit on the inside should be a lovely yellow colour and juicy, if it tastes bitter then it probably isn’t ready yet.
Next... onto the ingredients you will need to make the damson jam.
- 4 lbs damsons
- ¼ pint water
- Around 4 lbs sugar
What to do with the ingredients (it’s pretty simple)
- The first thing to do is to make sure that the damsons are clean before cooking. Wash them in a bucket of cold water and wipe them down with a piece of tissue or a dry cloth. Remove the stalks also.
- Put the damson fruit into a pan of water and simmer until the fruit is soft. This process should soften up the damsons enough for them to break up and the stones come out.
- Make sure that you remove all the stones from the pan, you can just fish them out.
- Next, add the sugar and stir it until you can see that it has dissolved into the mixture.
- Now it is time to bring the whole lot to the boil. Let it boil for around 10 mins.
- Whilst this mixture is boiling, the remainder of the stones that you couldn’t get before should rise to the surface – make sure that you get rid of these as they will be no good for your jam mixture.
- After you have finished boiling the mixture, there will be a layer of scum take this off and then pot and seal the jam mixture whilst it is still hot.
And that is pretty much that. Get in touch if you have a different damson jam or even damson wine recipe that you would like to share with us. We are always on the look at for new uses for the fruits on our damson trees.
Have a look at our lovely Damson Trees for sale
