I, like many others, love jam, and so am going to write about how to make it. You can use jam from less than all-right fruit, but for the best results - fresh fruit needs to be used.
Once you get used to making jam, it's really quite simple, and the resulting product is tasty.
In this recipe, we're going to make strawberry jam.
Ingredients
- 1 kg/2 lb Strawberries
- 1 kg/ 2 lb Granulated or Caster sugar
- Half a lemon, juice only
- Small blob of butter
Recipe
1. The day before you're going to make the jam, halve and hull the strawberries. Remove any soft spots you find, as-well as any berry that is bruised or that is overripe.
2. Find a large bowl and place your strawberries into it. Then pour 500g of your sugar into the bowl as-well. Mix them together with a spoon carefully, making sure to coat the strawberries well.
3. Once thoroughly mixed, place cling film over the bowl and place into fridge overnight.
4. The next day, place a saucer into a freezer to chill, this will be needed to check the setting point of the jam.
5. Sterilise your jam jars. First, wash them in warm soapy water and rinse in clean water. Place them upside-down and allow them to drain inside an oven set to 140C/275F/Gas 1. Leave them there for at least half an hour while you make the jam.
6. Pour your mixed strawberries from the night before into a very large pan or preserving pan. This includes their juice and any residual sugary juice left over. The mixture will rise as it boils.
Now add the remaining 500g of sugar and all the lemon juice.
7. Stir over a gentle heat until the sugar dissolves.
8. Now bring the strawberries up to boil, and then boil hard until the jam reaches the setting point. Check the setting point every ten minutes, bearing in mind it may take up to half-an-hour.
9. To test the setting point, remove the pan from the heat. Take your saucer from the freezer and place a drop of jam onto the cold plate. After a few seconds push the jam with your finger.
10. If the jams surface wrinkles, then it has reached its setting point and is ready.
If however, it still slides about as liquid, then it hasn't reached its heat and needs to be returned to the heat, being checked once again in a few more minutes.
11. Once the setting point has been reached, the heat can be turned off. Now stir in your butter and skim off any scum on the surface of the jam with a large spoon.
12. To make sure that the strawberries don't sink to the bottom of the jam jars, leave them in the pan for ten minutes, allowing them to thicken.
13. Remove the now sterilised jam jars from the oven with oven gloves, or other form of protection. Try not to touch the inside of the jars, as this can introduce bacteria.
14. Stir the thickened jam with a spoon and ladle it into the jars. If you don't think you can do it without spilling a lot of the jam, you could use something like a funnel.
15. Cover the top surface of the jam in each jar with waxed paper discs that have been cut to size - they should cover the entire surface of the jam. Press the wax disc down to create a complete seal.
16. While it's still hot, cover with a lid with a label and store in a cool, dark cupboard, being okay for up to a year. Eat when you want.
What flavour jams can you make?
There are many different flavours of jam you can make, some of which would be quite interesting to try:
- Blackberry
- Marionberry
- Raspberry
- Plum
- White grape
- Apricot
- Pumpkin butter
- Cherry
- Currant
- Rhubarb
- Apple
- Huckleberry
- Boysenberry
- Orange
- Peach
- Red Grape
- Mango
- Pineapple
- Avocado
- Bilberry
- Blackcurrant
- Blueberry
- Clementine
- Elderberry
- Gooseberry
- Grapefruit
- Kiwifruit
- Melon
- Pear