Preserving damsons in spiced syrup for winter puddings

Why damsons are worth the bother

A good damson tree is generous to the point of embarrassment. One decent crop in late August or early September can leave you with more fruit than any household can eat fresh, and since damsons are mouth-puckeringly sharp until they are cooked, they rarely get eaten straight from the bowl. That is exactly why bottling suits them so well. The fruit softens, the skins split and release their deep purple colour into the syrup, and what you are left with is a jar of fruit and juice that tastes of autumn and improves every pudding it touches.

There is a practical advantage too. Damsons are rich in pectin and acid, which means the syrup thickens slightly on its own as the jars stand. You do not need to fiddle about with setting points or thickeners. The stones stay in during preserving, which saves hours of stoning, and a note in your notebook about which jars came from which tree will soon tell you which cropped best.

Choose fruit that is fully ripe but still firm, with the dusty blue bloom intact. Windfalls bruise and ferment quickly, so use those first in a jam or leave them for the wildlife.

Readying the fruit and the jars

Work in small batches rather than trying to do the whole harvest in one evening. Rinse the damsons in a colander under cold water, then pick out any leaves and stalks and discard anything with a split skin or a soft brown patch. If you have the time, prick each fruit once with a darning needle. It sounds fussy, but it stops the skins shrivelling as the fruit heats through and lets the syrup penetrate properly.

For the jars, you want clean screw-band or clip-top preserving jars in 500ml or 1 litre sizes. Wash them in hot soapy water, rinse well and dry them upside down on a clean tea towel. Then sterilise them by standing them upright in a cool oven at 140°C (120°C fan, gas mark 1) for fifteen minutes. Boil the lids or rubber seals for five minutes and leave them to drain on a clean cloth. Fill the jars while they are still warm, straight from the oven.

Making the spiced syrup

The syrup is simple, but the proportions matter. A good medium syrup for damsons is roughly 500g of granulated or caster sugar to 600ml of water for every 1kg of prepared fruit. If you prefer a sweeter, more syrupy result to spoon over rice pudding, push the sugar up to 700g. Put the sugar and water in a large pan and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has dissolved completely, then bring it just to the boil and take it off the heat.

For each 500ml jar, tuck into the bottom:

• one small cinnamon stick, snapped in half
• four or five whole cloves
• a strip of pared lemon peel, with no white pith

You can add a blade of mace or a single star anise to a few jars for variety, but keep it restrained. Damsons have a fine, winey flavour of their own and heavy spicing will bury it. If you like a little warmth, three or four black peppercorns per jar work surprisingly well.

Filling and processing the jars

Pack the pricked damsons into the warm jars, shaking gently so they settle but not pressing them down hard enough to bruise. Fill to within 2cm of the rim, then pour over the hot syrup, making sure it covers the fruit completely and reaches the same headspace. Run a thin knife or skewer around the inside of the jar to release trapped air bubbles, then top up with syrup if the level has dropped.

Wipe the rims with a clean cloth dipped in hot water, seal the jars, and process them in a hot water bath. Stand them on a folded cloth or trivet in a deep pan, cover with warm water by about 2.5cm, and heat until the water reaches 85–90°C. Hold it there for twenty minutes for 500ml jars and twenty-five minutes for 1 litre jars. Never let the bath boil hard, or the fruit will collapse into mush. Lift the jars out with tongs and leave them undisturbed overnight on a wooden board.

In the morning, press the centre of each lid. If it is concave and does not flex, the seal is good. Any jar that fails the test should go straight in the fridge and be eaten within a fortnight.

A shortcut for busy days

If the harvest has arrived all at once and you cannot face the water bath, you can fill warm jars with boiling syrup, seal them and turn them upside down for five minutes before righting them. This works reasonably well for high-sugar syrups, but the jars should then be kept in the fridge and used within three months. Freezing is the other sensible fallback: pack the fruit and syrup into rigid containers, leave 2cm of headspace, and freeze for up to a year.

Store properly processed jars in a cool, dark cupboard. The colour will fade a little in bright light, and the flavour is best within twelve months, though they will keep safely far longer.

Winter puddings, and what to do with the syrup

Come January, a jar of spiced damsons is worth its weight in gold. Tip the contents of a 500ml jar into a buttered pie dish, add a tablespoon of cornflour slaked in a little cold water if you want a firmer set, and top with shortcrust or a crumble of flour, butter, oats and demerara sugar. Bake at 190°C for thirty-five to forty minutes, until the fruit bubbles up around the edges.

For a proper steamed pudding, butter a 1.5 litre basin, spoon the damsons and syrup into the bottom, and cover with a sponge made from equal weights of butter, sugar, eggs and self-raising flour, plus a handful of fresh breadcrumbs. Cover with pleated greaseproof and foil, and steam for an hour and a half. Turn it out onto a warm plate and serve with custard, letting the purple syrup run down the sides.

Do not pour the leftover syrup away. It makes a fine cordial with soda water, a useful poaching liquid for pears, or a sharp, fruity sauce to spoon over roast duck, venison or a wedge of cold ham. A few spoonfuls stirred through yoghurt, or over porridge on a frosty morning, will remind you exactly why you spent that September evening up to your elbows in damsons.