'The Right Way to Make Jams'

In 1993 Ben was browsing through a charity book shop in Bristol with our friend Bob - they were at the Methodist Conference that year, which is why he can put a date to the memory after all these years. I don't know what Bob was looking for, but Ben found this very dated little book, which seemed worth the asking price... And Ben was off!

He'd made a few jams beforehand, but always to a generic recipe. This book, first published in 1974, promised more - specific recipes and also advice on how to get it right!About three years ago the book fell apart, but it's so valuable to Ben that I took it to bits, punched holes in its pages and put it into a little ring binder for him. I wish I'd kept the broken old cover now - it was orange with line drawings on it - very '70s.The author is a man, and I think Ben likes that. We've nicknamed this chap Colonel Cyril Grange, although we have no evidence he was in the army except for his very clipped and insistent style. He's a bit of an old bossy boots, but he does know his stuff. And here are the first fruits of the book this spring!This is the kind of thing Ben finds useful - lots of 'what's right, what's wrong' info, so that you actually understand the process of jam making.

And here is my cute guy himself, with IPOD but without apron this time - instead his T-shirt nicely matches the cherries he's been picking from a friend's tree! (They went off to the Chelsea Flower Show, lucky things, and invited us in to pick their cherries.)Ben picked mountains of them! We didn't go with him, as Son 1 was having a bit of an iffy day, probably due to the quantity of strawberries he'd consumed in the previous 48 hours...Raja, the faithful hound, lay at his feet as he stoned the cherries, wating for any that fell... But not many did!In the kitchen, scary amounts of sugar awaited the fruit...Many of the cherries we pick don't go into jam, because they bottle so nicely. It's a taste of early summer all year round.

Two boilers, ready to go...And some were saved for eating now! We taught the boys 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor', and then Son 2 asked, 'Can you make that great cherry pudding tomorrow?' Yes, indeed, this was not Son 'I can make myself sick on seasonal fruit' 1, but Son 'You'll have to force me to eat anthing that's not a banana' 2, asking for a fruit pudding! There was much excitement, and I got out the recipe book to check if he meant this one, which he did.

For you:

Cherry Layer Pudding

8oz (225g) sugar
¼ pint (150ml) white wine

1¼ lb (550g) pitted cherries
5 oz (150g) butter
2 eggs, separated
a generous pinch of ground cinnamon
5oz (150g) fresh white breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons (4 X 15ml spoon) milk

Oven temperature:
Gas Mark 7/425°F/220°C

Cook 3oz (75g) of the sugar and the white wine together, to make a syrup. Add the cherries and poach for a few minutes until the syrup is coloured and flavoured. Drain the cherries, reserving the syrup.
Preheat the oven. Cream together the butter and the remaining sugar. Beat the egg yolks and add with the cinnamon. Stir in the breadcrumbs and the milk. Lastly, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the mixture as lightly and swiftly as possible. Layer this mixture with the cherries in a greased, shallow pie dish (starting with a cherry layer), and bake in the preheated oven for half an hour. Turn out, and serve with the reheated syrup and some cream.

I don't normally turn it out - that can cause disasters and there's no point in spoiling a perfect pudding!

'Le Parfait' weekend, or, as Pa Larkin would translate it, 'perfik'!You are all invited to my blog Garden Party - see the post below for all the details!