Medlar jelly is one of those rare delights that stops you in your tracks. Its fragrant, amber-pink gloss and rich, toffee-apple flavour make you wonder why it isn’t part of your daily ritual. Visitors to our garden - especially chefs, producers, and food writers - always light up when they spot the medlar tree.
Our Nottingham Medlar tree is one of the newer additions to the Fat Tomato garden, planted in 2020 and bearing fruit for the first time in 2023. Medlars are usually harvested after the first frosts in late November or December, when they soften through a process called bletting - a natural ripening that turns their tannic, hard fruit into something luscious, aromatic, and intensely flavoured.
We make our medlar jelly with fruit picked at different stages of ripeness - some gathered before frost to keep the pectin high, and others collected later for their caramel-like sweetness. They’re simmered gently with Bramley and crab apples from the garden and organic Verna lemons from our friends at CrowdFarming, where small Mediterranean growers work organically, often as second- or third-generation farmers.
It takes two slow days to make this jelly, letting the fruit drip naturally through muslin overnight to preserve its clarity and perfume. The result is something truly special - sweet, spiced, and slightly old-fashioned in the best way. Perfect on toast, served beside farmhouse cheeses or roast meats, or melted into sauces.
Presented in a 165g glass WECK jar, wrapped in illustrated paper that tells the Wexford and Irish food story, and elegantly packaged in our signature black box.
Medlar jelly is one of those rare delights that stops you in your tracks. Its fragrant, amber-pink gloss and rich, toffee-apple flavour make you wonder why it isn’t part of your daily ritual. Visitors to our garden - especially chefs, producers, and food writers - always light up when they spot the medlar tree.
Our Nottingham Medlar tree is one of the newer additions to the Fat Tomato garden, planted in 2020 and bearing fruit for the first time in 2023. Medlars are usually harvested after the first frosts in late November or December, when they soften through a process called bletting - a natural ripening that turns their tannic, hard fruit into something luscious, aromatic, and intensely flavoured.
We make our medlar jelly with fruit picked at different stages of ripeness - some gathered before frost to keep the pectin high, and others collected later for their caramel-like sweetness. They’re simmered gently with Bramley and crab apples from the garden and organic Verna lemons from our friends at CrowdFarming, where small Mediterranean growers work organically, often as second- or third-generation farmers.
It takes two slow days to make this jelly, letting the fruit drip naturally through muslin overnight to preserve its clarity and perfume. The result is something truly special - sweet, spiced, and slightly old-fashioned in the best way. Perfect on toast, served beside farmhouse cheeses or roast meats, or melted into sauces.
Presented in a 165g glass WECK jar, wrapped in illustrated paper that tells the Wexford and Irish food story, and elegantly packaged in our signature black box.
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