A couple of very nice goes at ice-cream, meringue and strawberries later there were still plenty with which to make Jam - which had always been part of the plan. I'm not quite sure why an urge to make jam had come across me either. A google found a recipe from Delia which looked easy to follow.
2) Leave overnight, having given a little stir (at this point the strawberries are super nice for a little nibble, so there was 'wastage' atthis point)
3) Heat very slowly until the sugar disolves, while trying not to stir too much. Delia added then juice of a lemon; we'd forgotten that so used a table spoon of lime juice. Then bring to a rolling boil for 8 minutes.
5) Allow the hot jam to cool. Delia said a knob of butter would disperse any scum that had come to the top - I tried that, but it didn't. So I just took it off with a spoon. Decant in to warmed cleaned jars:
This was all quite nice, and while the testing for 'setness' was a bit fiddly, there was nothing too taxing. The resulting jam, tastes well like jam - pretty nice jam at that too.
Plenty of lessons to learn though:
1) I need to get the strawberries cheaper for it to be worthwhile. There were £4's of strawberries and £1.23 of preserving jam went in to making these two jars. I can but a pretty good jar of jam for £2
2) I picked the biggest lushest strawberries I could find - a bit pointless really for jam. Little ones would have been better; they are massive.
3) I need to be a bit more patient at the wrinkle/ready to set test stage. My jam tastes nice but it pretty runny.
I always find strawberry jam hard to make - mine is always runny too, but lovely and tasty. I like the whole strawberries in your jam.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Kath - it's not the easiest to make. I always found gooseberry nice and easy. Still highly envious and would love to have a jar or two.
ReplyDeleteThank you ladies. I'd like two jars! it's been so popular the big jar's all gone already
ReplyDeleteI made a good discovery on friday night; I've found an entire hedge of raspberries on a football 1/2 a mile from home. They weren't quite ripe, but hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be having a go at some raspberry jam.
A hedge of raspberries, that sounds like a brilliant find! Raspberry jam is definitely a favourite. Never heard of hedges on footballs before though.
ReplyDeleteI really ought to proof read more, that was very poor of me - it took me quite a while to work out that I'd meant to write footpath instead of football. It's brilliant; it's a footpath around the edge of some allotments - so it's quiet and there won't be any car-exhaust or dog-exhaust remains.
ReplyDeleteOh Delia. Oh jam. Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to try the River Cafe magic raspberry jam: put sugar in oven to warm. Put raspberries in oven to warm. Mix. Done.
Morning Silverpebble, you've a very Gordon Ramsay-esque style to your writing. I'll be looking up this River Cafe magic jam in a week or two, as the raspberries should be ready by then. Thanks for the tip; it certainly sounds easier than this recipe.
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