What are you making with your Edible Harvests ?

@CarolineL no I should but dont. Too many other things in the garden stop me from waiting until the medlars blet. So what do I do? Well chop them up (not easy) and "cook" them for a while (sorry but I tend to make the recipe up as I go along). Then filter and use the liquid remains and add sugar depending on how much the liquid is.
Sorry to be not accurate but I do tend to just go with the flow.
However the quinces....I do peel, core and cut and then add them to some water in sugar for a few minutes. Take them out and put them into hot jars which then has the syrup added and sealed.
Today we had another jar of quinces from last year as a the dissert. Lovely.

 

@On the Levels you are very good at all this preserving! I think the ratio of difficulty to result means that the quince and medlar will be moving on... Well if they come out of the ground easily, I might replant them at the edge of my woods and leave them to it.
By comparison, I had a further 2kg of raspberries I picked this summer in the freezer, so I made more jam - very easy!

 

@CarolineL I really am not good at preserving because I just make it up depending on what is in the garden.
Don't give in with your trees but maybe in another part of your garden they will do better.

 

Made a Apple Cake late last night for our 9pm cuppa, Quite nice, as quick recipe. Used our last 3 apples from our first harvest from our semi dwarf tree thats a few yrs old. l think we got 20 apples off them. The trees were only £5 from HomeBargins l think and we found they had labels on them mixed up, so no idea varitey.But they are a really nice large Apple that l found good eaters as well as cooking. Carrot cake l made last wkend was disaster as the printed recipe seem ed to have put wrong amount of suger printed and it was horrible, had to bin it :( . Looking for recipe for last 10 toms iv got on windowsill thats just going red, hopefully by weekend.

 

I baked some of the windfall pears in honey and sprinkled with a crumble top, turned out nice.

 

I cooked some pears just like i would do with cooking apples and they turned out good, had a bit more juice than apples and only needed a bit of honey to sweeten them, put in freezer for a pudding later.

 

I used a recipe I saw online for sticky toffee apple cake. peeled and cubed maybe 10 apples into 1cm pieces, then made a batter of self raising flower, brown sugar, spice, 1 egg and an equal amount of butter, such that the volume of batter is half the volume of cubed apples.

I mixed the batter and apples and poured a good jug of loose syrup of brown sugar and water. then cooked at 200c for a while. the result is a tasty cake and the syrup turns to sticky caramel at the bottom and sides.

I suppose proper sticky toffee cake would have dates in it: perhaps bletted medlars would make a good substitute if you have buckets of them.

I believe medlars should blet on the tree if you leave them but ive not seen them around here so cant test it.

 

I collected over half a wheel barrow of fallen apples yesterday. I have already given my daughter a bag full, am going to give my neighbour the same for her children. The rest I am going to juice for apple juice and cider.
Your idea of an apple cake reminded me of a recipe called Gache Melee, similar to your recipe, batter over apples. I might give it a go. I have tried buttering a dish thickly, sprinkling liberally with demerara sugar, laying slices of pineapple/apple on before pouring a sponge mix over the top. Pineapple Upside Down Pudding. That makes a sticky coating to the dish as well.

 

Sunday baking day, made pear cake ( not tasted it yet.).plus a recipe found for potato flan with our home grown potatoes with own herbs ie parsley and chives added to bought ham cheese & eggs mixture Also did oregano marinade chicken legs for tonights tea while oven on, to have with some home grown tom & green salad. Cake is same recipe as the apple one we made but trying out pears, Will have with cuppa later . Not bad from a harvest from our small garden

 

I tried a recipe where you simply peel and cube the apples, put everything else into a bowl and mix until like breadcrumbs, stir in the eggs and apples, turn into a tin and bake. Mine took 1 1/2 hrs to cook instead of the 1 hr. As SR flour is used it is more like a sponge mix than a batter so lighter in texture. It doesn't seem so sweet when eaten cold for some reason. I shall definitely make it again.

 

That sounds a bit like Dorset Apple Cake. I make a vegan version of that.

 

I suspect every county in the country has its own version of Apple Cake, also what it is called.

 

I've bottled 13 jars now of quinces. The perfume is lovely. Have just started some for wine. Hard work cutting them.
Looked up recipes for baked quinces. Interesting that there are so many different recipes. Some call for butter and spices, others for olive oil, others for white wine and others for water and sugar. Still will wait a few days to give my hands a rest from cutting and coring the quinces.

 

Good grief @On the Levels - how many rooms have you allocated to become your larder? I can't even store my jam properly

 

@CarolineL yes we had issues last year with where the jars were going to go and then the previous year we didn't have enough room in our small freezer either. So we bought another small freezer....but where can it go? After much debate it went into the porch and has been great.
The jars? Well we have a larder that is brilliant and having cleared some more space allowed me to put more jars in there. Usually I would put the jars in a small cupboard under the worktop which has 2 shelves and I can sometimes put one jar on top of another. Come Christmas time the jars are given to family and friends in a hamper so I have more space again until next harvest.