North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Heron Breen <breen@fedcoseeds.com>]

Hi all,
We deciced to make Hawthorne Jam from "English" Hawthorne fruits (C. 
monogyna). 
Lessons learned:
It takes quite a bit of water and time to cook down hawthorne fruits enough 
so the 
can be squeejed into a sauce. A steam juicer may be much more effective at 
this 
extraction. We ended up with 4 cups of puree/sauce to 3 or 4 quart bags of 
frozen 
fruit. Keep stirring and adding water so they don't burn/scald.
At this point we decided a thicker "butter" was the only option, so we did 
the 
usual canning regimen, added a little lemon juice and sugar to taste. Upon 
cooling 
and trying this the next day, we recognized that the flavor had gotten much 
more 
subtle. It is subtle pear-like but slightly granular, but good. We should 
have 
added more sugar and a little more lemon juice, and maybe do the fruit juice 
for 
pulp swap using a cup of apple cider. The flavor on its own is nice, kinda of 
like 
yams and pears and something els, but even with just bread and butter, it was 
lessened considerable. We'll try it again next year, but pear butter probably 
would 
beat it out each time.
sincerely,
Heron Breen
zone 4b, Maine