UKH

Anyone tried making them? Think aln from here was having a go, keen to have a bash myself and learn from The Hive. I’ve got loads of blackberries, rose hips, some spare quince, crab apples to steal. 

Nope, haven't tried that yet, though it's on the ever expanding list of foragey stuff to have a go at. Looks kinda like a healthier version of fruit winders, maybe good for kids who're reluctant to eat fruit. Could also be good for hill food. I'd be interested in the results if you have a go. 

Will be having a go this weekend. Thinking of two versions: one mainly blackberries and ‘normal’ fruits, and another of haws, for the hardcore people. It’s for consumption and Xmas presents. 

I do them from the leftovers of quince jelly.

After boiling everything to death and extracting the liquid for the jelly I pass the quince meat through a sieve to get rid of the seeds. I then mix the pulp with sugar to taste and use a big pan to reduce the mix to a very dry consistency, i.e. until stirring leaves a "track" where the bottom of the pan becomes visible. This can take up to 45 min or an hour of continuous stirring, depending on how dry the pulp was to start with.

I then pour the mix onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, and let it dry in an open oven at 80 to 100C for one or two hours.

Finally I flip the fruit leather from the tray onto a grid, sprinkle with sugar, and let it dry for another couple of weeks. Then the children will eat it all in a couple of days, most years there is nothing left for boxing up as christmas presents....

CB

edit: if there were anything left it would indeed be perfect hiking food!

Thanks for that. On reflection, I should have saved my quince pulp - it’s very unlike me to waste anything, even a foraged by product. 

Do you have a compost bin? Everything I have left over goes in mine, then it isn't wasted 😀

Sure do. My grandparents used to live next door to the coop in Grasmere. The staff would chuck their ‘off’ vegetables etc over the hedge and into their compost heap. It would then get sifted, bad bits chopped off, and eaten. TBH, it was a good few tears back and staff didn’t lob much out, consumers weren’t as fussy. 

Summat else: I made three of those heat bags by sifting the sloe and damson stones out of the mush left over from wine making. After microwaving, they smell of almonds !

That'll be the cyanide! 

Good call.  I’m going to try this at the weekend following this thread In reply to mick taylor:

Did you make it? 

Yes, sort of.  Used half pound haws, a big apple and handful sloes/bullace.  I dried it best i could on a low heat (I have an induction hob which is great ofr very low temps) then alternate drying between airing cupboard and the oven after its been used (wont put the oven on just to dry it, defeats the purpose of being an eco friendly stingey get).

I did do the crabapple booze.  It seemed to take an age to get frothing and was tempted to lob in some yeast as i thought id end up with stinking rotting mush, but out of nowhere it started fizzing.  Its a very rough and ready affair, perhaps enough for 10 pints, and used one jar honey and some sugar and total guess it will come in at about 4 or 5 %.  So thanks for the inspiration.

These are the stones from bullace - the day nes full of cyanide!

I'm all thumbs today:  'the ones full of cyanide!',  not some cryptic spy lingo

Another day in the airing cupboard did the trick. It now looks like leather. Strong taste, chewy, defo try it. Smudge of honey next time. 

Looks interesting.... I'm going to have a go at some version of it, but probably not with haws, I'm not keen on them. My raw rosehip syrup is nearly ready to be strained off, and the hips are viable for another use. And the tree 2 mins away with the big red apples still has lots of good fruit, so I think that's the combo to go for. 

I remember eating this as a kid in Iran, in the 70s - lavashak (attempted phonetic spelling). It was a staple snack. Apricot and sour cherry varieties were common iirc

Rose hips:  did you use the big hips and extracted the seeds?  The seeds can be a major irritant coz of those hairs on them.

The big round ones were what we called itchycoos when I was a boy. We used to pull the seeds out and put them down people's shirts. 

But for foraging I use the smaller oval hips, the seeds are removed by sieving or straining.