Sloe berry curd is a delicious, creamy fruit curd with a beautiful, vibrant plum colour. This quick and easy sloe recipe uses frozen fruit to produce a moreish, delicate preserve which is a million miles away in taste from the astringent sloe berries in their raw form.
What is a fruit curd?
Fruit curds are creamy fruit spreads made from fruit juice or puree cooked with fresh eggs and butter. These delicious custard-like preserves make fabulous fillings for pies and cakes and are also delicious served simply on bread or stirred into yoghurt. Due to the nature of the ingredients in fruit curds, they only have a short shelf life, so they are best made in small batches, as is the case with my sloe berry curd recipe below.
What are sloe berries?
Sloe berries are the fruit of the Blackthorn shrub (Prunus Spinosa). It is native to Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa and has been introduced to many other parts of the world.
Blackthorn, a member of the plum family, has been used here in the UK as stock-proof hedging for centuries. Consequently, in rural areas, it is a common sight indeed. The traditional use for sloes here in the UK is for flavouring gin, but these tart little jewels also make fabulous cordials, jellies and other preserves.
You can find lots more information on how to identify blackthorn bushes, how and when to harvest their delicious berries in our Damson, Bullace or Sloe gin recipe post.
We are lucky to have lots of blackthorn bushes in the hedges that surround The Forage Field. Sloe berry season runs from September to December, and traditionally sloes are picked after the first frosts when they are sweetest. Like many hedgerow fruits, sloes freeze well, so although you can also use fresh berries in this sloe recipe, you can find my reasons for freezing foraged fruits here.
A note on foraging.
- Only collect and eat wild foods that you are 100% sure you have identified correctly.
- Common sense says that if you entirely strip an area of wild food, you will damage that habitat, so only collect where food is bountiful and take reasonable amounts.
- Be aware of what happens in the area you are harvesting in. Plants near busy roads may be absorbing emissions from vehicles. If nearby fields are sprayed with pesticides, chances are some will also make their way onto wild plants. And if watercourses are polluted, your native plants will drink that water.
What you need to make Sloe Berry Curd.
100 grams sloe berries
One tablespoon lemon juice
Two tablespoons water
100 grams sugar (I used white caster sugar)
50 grams butter (I used salted)
Two large eggs beaten well
2 x 5-ounce jars (Amazon Affiliate link) sterilised in a warm oven
This recipe makes approximately 300mls of sloe berry curd.
How to make Sloe Berry Curd.
Heat the frozen sloe berries, water and lemon juice to a very gentle simmer in a small pan and cook the berries until they split and become soft. This will only take 5-10 minutes. Note: The berries can burn, so keep the heat low and keep a close eye on them.
Once the fruit is soft, you need to extract the puree from the skins and stones either by sieving it or passing it through a food mill.
I use a food mill (Amazon Affiliate link), which works brilliantly for separating the puree from the inedible parts of the fruit. Alternatively, the traditional method is pushing it through a sieve using the back of a spoon. This method is more time consuming and effort than using a food mill but is equally effective.
Return the sloe berry puree to the saucepan and add the sugar and butter.
Heat the mixture gently until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.
Still over low heat, slowly pour the well-beaten egg into the puree mixture – whisking all the time.
Continue whisking over a gentle heat until the eggs cook and the sloe berry curd thickens. This process should only take a couple of minutes.
Once the sloe curd is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, pour into the warm sterilised glass jars and seal.
Once cool, the sloe curd should be kept in the fridge and used within two weeks. You can also freeze it.
Sloe berry curd is delicious served on scones, with yoghurt, or used as a cake and tart filling.
4 comments
yummy!! needed to use up some frozen sloe berries and this works so nice and takes out all the astringency! had it with meringues :)
It’s a great recipe for showing what an amazing flavour sloes have, I’m glad you enjoyed it :)
Brilliant recipe. Very tasty
This sounds amazing – I’ll definitely be giving it a go!