Last week Grace and I went to our local Pick your own farm to get some fruit. We really wanted some blackcurrants but time ran away with us and all that is left at our local farm this time of year is raspberries. Luckily, we love raspberries so we set about picking and ended up with two big punnets full! The fruit is gorgeous and has lasted well in the fridge for several days – much better than the raspberries we buy from the supermarket. For these two large punnets of raspberries we paid £6 (plus 10p for each plastic punnet – you can reuse them next time you go) – I think that’s pretty good value!

Quite a few were eaten by a rather eager little girl as soon as we got home but we still had a lot to use. Some went into the freezer (which Grace unplugged at the weekend whilst making toast and didn’t realise!), some went into the fridge until we decided what to make and some were made into raspberry cordial straight away.

This yummy cordial is fairly easy to make – as long as you don’t mind sieveing out the pips several times! It is worth the effort though and we have had it mixed with sparkling wine, drizzled on ice cream, mixed with lemonade/sparkling water and made it into ice lollies. A little goes a long way!

Ingredients

500g raspberries

300g granulated sugar

100ml water

50ml water

What to do

1. Wash the raspberries and place them in a medium saucepan with the sugar and 100ml of water.

2. Bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring occasionally. Simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Blend the fruit in a blender or food processor – be very careful when blending hot food!

4. Sieve the fruit to remove the pips and return the smooth mixture to the saucepan.

5. Add the extra 50ml water and boil again for 5 minutes.

6. If it needs it, sieve the raspberry mix again. Then store in sterilised bottles.

I didn’t have any bottles so I used a kilner jar – it looks pretty but it’s a bit of a pain to get the cordial out of!