FREEZING SOFT FRUIT

This is something i’m sure many of you do already but I only really discovered the benefits of freezing fruit separately before bagging a few years ago and it really helped! Because soft fruit tends to arrive all at once, we’ve suddenly got a years worth of Raspberries, Red Currants, Black Currants, Blackberries and anything else your growing in the space of about a month. And the only way to deal with them unless your doing 14hr jam making shifts is to freeze them!

I always freeze the separetly before bagging them up for a couple of reasons… firstly i’m never entirley sure what i’ll end up using them for and a frozen block might be okay for jam but not so good for decorating a cake! The other advantage is that you can just reach into the bag and scoop out what you need like frozen peas rather than having to deforst the whole bag at once.

I’ve learnt to pick them and freeze them imediatly because too may times i’ve left them with good intentions and theyve turned into a fruit-fly infested mouldy heap in a matterof days. 

The easiest way to do this is if you have the little skinny ice-try draw in your freezer. Stick a piece of baking parchment on there and lay them out. takes up no space and its perfect but its equally fine to line a baking tray and just clear some space to fit it into the draws.

They freeze quickly, you can loosen them of the baking sheet really easilly and then bag them up ready for use later on!

With fruit on stems like the currants, freeze them on the stems because once they are frozen they pull off really easilly!

So how long can you keep frozen fruit?

About 8 months is the max really. I mean, I’ve made jam from fruit that been sat in there for about two years but i wouldn’t use it for much other than that.