It cropped wonderfully last year and while this summer's haul isn't quite as impressive, there are plenty of fruit with which to make red currant jelly.
This is the third summer that I've made jelly and I think it's my most successful batch so far.
My red currant jelly recipe
Red currant jelly is really easy to make, as it's just berries and sugar boiled up together. All the recipe's I've seem recommend a one to one ratio between fruit and sugar, so 1kg of berries should be boiled up with 1kg of sugar.
This year I was a little short of sugar, so my 1kg bag was matched with around 1.2kg of berries. From the initial samples, it tastes great - not too sweet.
The berries (including stalks) are tipped into a big pan and boiled up slowly, mixing in the sugar. This is based on a Delia Smith recipe, which says boiled the fruit for 10 minutes before adding the sugar, then boil again for 8 minutes.
My approach is more flexible - I just boiled up the fruit (slowly), adding sugar as I go. I stir it quite a lot, because the fruit seem to take a time to break down. I want the juice from every berry to be added to the liquid.
Straining the liquid
This is the tricky part. In my first year I followed my mother's recommendation and put the mix into a muslin cloth, which was suspended over a bowl overnight and then reboiled the following day. This seemed quite long-winded and Delia's approach is much faster.
She says that the mix can be strained through a nylon sieve and gauze, with the liquid then decanted into jars. I use muslin in a colander, which sits atop a bowl. The liquid drips through very slowly. Is there a faster way, I wonder?
If you don't mind slightly cloudy jelly, you can squeeze the bag to release more liquid.
The entire process is very sticky, as the jelly doesn't seem to want to stay in the appropriate containers. But it's now complete for this year.
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