Lillie O’Brien’s jams are something a little bit different. All the flavours of the seasons, but with a twist. As a rule, she never mixes two fruits together, preferring to use something else to enhance the intrinsic flavour of the fruits she has to hand; her fig with Earl Grey jam flies off the shelves and Nigella Lawson gives her raspberry with liquorice preserve an Autumnal update with blackberries. Even with a new book to her name, Five Season of Jam (published by Octopus) and her own shop, ‘The London Borough of Jam,’ Lillie still makes the jams in her kitchen at home in two copper pans; “I can’t use a bigger vessel with more fruit because it will take longer to set and end up tasting more like sugar. The less you put in, the better the flavour.”
To taste the difference yourself, join Lillie in the demo tipi on Saturday 15th September for a workshop on how to preserve the seasons.