It has been a very strange summer and my elderberries ripened a whole month earlier than expected. Just as well I was keeping a bit of an eye on them because the birds love them and always eat them before they start to look ripe (for us) so it would be easy to miss that your crop was just slowly disappearing. Thankfully I was able to net a good proportion of what was left.
Usually I dehydrate my elderberries so that I can make things with them later on when I’m not busy with the summer garden, but this time I decided to try making elderberry jam with fresh elderberries. I love the almost savoury flavour of the jam, but to be honest I’m not that thrilled with the very seedy texture and will probably stick with making elderberry syrup in future.
4 cups fresh elderberries
3 cups sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
Bring ingredients to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves.
Continue boiling, stirring occasionally, for about 20-30 minutes until jam thickens and reaches jam-setting temperature (a little on a saucer wrinkles as you push it with a fingernail).
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- Fresh elderberries
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- Use a fork to gently pull the berries off
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- Add to preserving pan with sugar and lemon
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- Bring to boil, stirring
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- Boil until jam setting stage
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- Spoon into sterilized jars
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- Elderberry jam
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