Just one week to go to the Winter Fayre! We still had some prep to do this week, which including making more preserves!

This week we made a rosy pink apple jam, made with Organic Royal Gala Apples. The pink colour of the jam just comes from the skin of the apples, which we left on (also as a natural source of pectin - the protein that gives jams their texture).

To the apples, we added sugar, lemon juice, and the seeds from 5 cardamom pods. Once the jam was cooked, we added some vanilla paste. Luckily after we filled 4 jars with jam, there was some leftover for us to try. It was so tasty! One of our volunteers wanted to take a jar home with them, but we’ll wait til next week so we can proudly display the jam at the fayre first!

While the jam was cooking, we continued with making decorations for the Winter Fayre. Some of these will decorate the tent, and some will be used as inspiration for people on the day, who want to make their own!

We painted wood slices, which had been sawed from an old Elder tree that had been cut down at the farm. Some of us painted Christmas themed designs, and some painted other designs. Either way, the slices look great. They just need some ribbon or string attached to them so they can be hung up!

As well as decorating wood slices, we made some snowflakes from white paper, to decorate the Tent with at the Winter Fayre.

We also started to make labels for the jams we have made.

At the end of the session, we had a very important mince pie taste test, with mince pies provided by one of our volunteers!