Monday 14 February 2011

jam ... again!

I found out on Monday that a colleague of mine is having a birthday and decided to make her some strawberry jam.  It's actually a lot simpler to make than the peach jam I made on the weekend.  And this time I took more pictures along the way!

Step one, trim 500g of strawberries, break them up with a potato masher, and mix in 350g of sugar.  I used the vanilla sugar my mother in law gave me from real Tahitian vanilla beans!  I don't know if you'll be able to taste it but I thought I'd give it a try.

Some recipes say to let the strawberries macerate overnight, some don't, but since I did this step as soon as I got home I decided to let them sit until after dinner.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/strawjam1.JPG
Step 2, add some pectin.  Pectin is the stuff in fruit that makes jam firm and not runny.  Strawberries don't have a lot of it, so I added the juice of 1/2 a lemon.  Just to be safe, I wrapped the seeds and some of the rind of the lemon in cheesecloth like I did with the apple in the peach jam.  I sat this in the mixture whilst it macerated.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/strawjam2.JPG
Step 3, slowly heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a roiling boil.  This foamed up a lot more than the peach jam did, so make sure you use a big pot!  Look at it go!  That pink blob in the middle is foam, which you should skim off so the jam doesn't go cloudy.
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/strawjam3.JPG
After boiling for 10 minutes, test some jam on a plate you've kept in the freezer.  If after a minute the jam is still runny, boil for another few minutes.  If it's a bit wrinkly and firm on the plate, it's ready to bottle up.  A lot faster work than the peach jam, which took 30 minutes of cooking before you added the sugar and another 20-30 minutes after adding the sugar.

Once again I tried putting the lid on the jar and turning it upside-down to sterilize the lid.  Once again, it threw up on the benchtop when I did that (my poor oven mitt is now coated in two layers of jam).  I got this jar from the supermarket, it's obviously not a very good lid!
http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden11/strawjam4.JPG
In any case, as long as you sterilize the jars beforehand, keep it in the fridge, and eat it pretty quickly it's not a huge deal.  I just hope my work colleague enjoys the jam!  I kept back just a tiny portion to try later.

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