Summer jam (and leather) on a dismal day

We've had some really damp dismal weather recently so it seemed that the best thing to do was get in the kitchen and make some summery-scented jam. It's also helpful that this involves clearing things out of the almost full freezer.






This time I went for a mix of raspberries and redcurrants .....





...with all the seeds sieved out....

At this point I put some purée aside for fruit leather. This is my second attempt and this time I spread it thinner to cover a baking sheet.

I'm not sure that it worked any better this way. Most of it dried quite quickly but being very thin, it was difficult to remove from the paper and broke into bits.

To the rest of the purée, I added 3/4 pound of red gooseberries (quite ancient ones from the depths of the freezer) and made into jam.

Jam and leather

Frustrating weather that couldn't decide to rain or not meant I decided to stay in, guard the washing blowing on the line and use some of the fruit up out of the freezer. Searching in the depths I find some almost ancient redcurrants and blackberries - a strange mix but we have too many redcurrants (which is why they get to be so old) and not enough other fruit.

The jam version of my efforts

The main downside to this fruit mix for jam is that either the jam has lots and lots of seed or I have to sieve it. Tedious as it is, I prefer the sieved version which is technically a butter.
At this ppint, I decided instead of making jam with all the purée, I'd have a go at making fruit leather - a sort of fruity chewy toffee-thing.

testing the consistency

Now somewhere I have a recipe - but I couldn't find it quickly enough so just went on guesswork. I've talked to Tudor re-enacters  about fruit leather - it was a popular way of preserving soft fruit back in Tudor times - and been assured that it doesn't require a lot of sugar - so, to half pint of purée I added an ounce of sugar, boiled it up till I thought it was stiff enough






and poured it into a paper-lined dish to set - hopefully.

It didn't quite set as I'd hoped so I popped in back in the oven after baking when it was still warm but cooling and after a while it was ready to peel off the backing paper.

It still seems a little moist and I can't imagine it will keep any length of time. So I've cut it into strips, laid them on clean baking paper and I'm now leaving it to dry further. So far so good, but I'm suspecting that like dried apple it won't last long enough to test its keeping abilities!