A proper taste of the autumn hedge

There is something deeply satisfying about a jar of hedgerow jelly. It is the colour of old mahogany, it wobbles just enough when you tilt the jar, and it tastes of the whole autumn: sharp, faintly bitter, deeply fruity and nothing at all like the pale, sweet stuff on the supermarket shelf. The best part is that you cannot buy it. It only exists because someone walked a lane in October with a bag and a bit of patience.

The method is old, simple and forgiving. You simmer a mixed bag of wild fruit, strain the juice through a jelly bag, then boil that juice with sugar until it sets. No added pectin, no fuss, no special equipment beyond a large pan and a piece of muslin.

What to look for in the hedge

Traditional hedgerow jelly is a blend rather than a single-fruit preserve, and each fruit does a job. A good working mix is roughly two parts sloes, one part haws and one part crab apples by weight, though you can nudge it about according to what the lane gives you.

• Sloes — the fruit of the blackthorn. Small, round, dusty blue-black, mouth-puckeringly sour. They bring colour, depth and a dry, faintly almondy bitterness.
• Haws — the berries of hawthorn. Deep red, with a stone in the middle. They add body and a soft, subtle sweetness that rounds off the sloes.
• Crab apples — small, hard and sour, but packed with pectin and acid. These are what guarantee your jelly sets.
• Optional extras — a handful of rowan berries, a few blackberries, elderberries, wild damsons, bullaces or rosehips. Add them in small quantities; too many soft berries make a cloudy, slower-setting jelly.

Sloes are traditionally picked after the first frost, which softens them. If the frost has not arrived, pick them anyway and freeze them overnight at home — it does the same job.

Foraging without doing harm

Pick only from hedges you have permission to be in, and never from roadside verges where the spray drift and exhaust fumes are heavy. Take a few berries from each bush rather than stripping one plant bare; the birds and small mammals need them far more than we do. Leave the obviously damaged and mouldy fruit behind.

Above all, pick only what you can identify with absolute certainty. Learn the difference between sloes and the similar-looking but inedible berries of the cherry laurel, and never gather from a hedge if you are unsure. Take a good pocket guide, or better still, go out with someone who already knows the lane.

Simmer, mash and strain

Rinse the fruit, pick out stalks and leaves, and cut the crab apples in half — no need to peel or core, as everything is going to be strained out anyway. Tip it all into a large, heavy-based pan (stainless steel or enamelled, never bare aluminium, which the acid will attack) and add water just to cover, roughly 1.5 litres per 2kg of fruit.

Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for one to one and a half hours, until everything has collapsed into a soft, pulpy mush. Mash it now and then with a potato masher to help the juice out. Ladle the pulp into a scalded jelly bag suspended over a large bowl, or into a double layer of muslin tied to the legs of an upturned stool. Leave it to drip undisturbed for eight to twelve hours, or overnight.

Resist the temptation to squeeze the bag. Squeezing forces pulp through the cloth and gives you a cloudy jelly that never quite sparkles. Let gravity do the work and measure the juice you have collected.

Boiling to a set

Put the juice back in the clean pan and add 450g of preserving sugar for every 570ml (one pint) of juice, along with a tablespoon of lemon juice per litre to sharpen the flavour. Warm the sugar slightly first so it dissolves faster, and stir over a low heat until every grain has gone — catch it too early and you will end up with gritty jelly.

Then turn the heat up and boil hard. It will take roughly eight to fifteen minutes to reach setting point, about 104–105°C on a jam thermometer. If you prefer the old method, drop a teaspoonful onto a chilled saucer, leave it a minute, and push it with your finger: if the surface wrinkles, it is ready. Skim off any scum with a slotted spoon and pour into hot, sterilised jars, filling right to the brim. Cover with a wax disc and a lid while still hot.

Storing and using your jelly

Label the jars with the date and the fruits you used. Kept in a cool, dark cupboard, hedgerow jelly will hold its colour and flavour for a good twelve months; once opened, keep it in the fridge.

It is far more than a toast topping. Try it with roast lamb or venison, stirred into gravy, or served alongside a sharp farmhouse Cheddar. A spoonful melted over a ham before it goes in the oven makes a wonderful glaze, and a little swirled through natural yoghurt is a fine thing on a dark morning. Make a batch this autumn and you will be watching the hedges all year round, waiting for the sloes to come round again.