Continue testing until a set has been reached.Īlways remove the jam from the heat while you're testing so that if it's ready you won't overcook it. When it has been boiling rapidly for 15-20 mins or so, take a saucer from the freezer and drop a small spoonful of jam on to it.Īllow it to cool for a minute then push your finger through the jam – if it wrinkles it's ready if not, boil for a few more minutes. To test for a good set put a few saucers into the freezer before you start to cook the jam. 4 cups mashed strawberries about 8 cups whole strawberries 2 teaspoons calcium water see step 1 cup up to 1 cup honey or cup up to 2 cups sugar 2. Skim the scum frequently while the jam is boiling or add a small knob of butter to disperse it. Use as little water as possible and cover the fruit with a tightly fitting lid. Keep them warm until you pour in the jam. If you have a dishwasher, put them through a high heat cycle (or wash and rinse them well in hot water) then place them on a baking tray and slide into a hot oven (gas mark 3/160˚C/fan 140˚C/325˚F) for 10-15 mins. First of all your jars and lids must be sterilised. Jam sugar is specified for one of these recipes – this is sugar with added citric acid and aids the setting of the jam when using fruit with little natural setting agent (pectin), such as strawberries.Īll equipment must be scrupulously clean. Use dry, unblemished and not overripe fruit. There are a few golden rules for making jams, jellies and marmalades.
Seal tightly with screw top lids while it is hot and label
I added the rest of the sugar and then proceeded to cook the crap out of those berries (that’s the official term) in order to assure a good, jammy set. When it came time to cook the berries down, I fished the vanilla pieces out (squeezing out the vanilla seeds so that the jam was beautifully flecked) and then poured the berries and all the juice they had produced into my 10 quart stainless steel pot (this stuff foams, so give yourself plenty of room). I actually left the strawberries in the fridge for nearly two days before I got around to making jam. The rest I sugared (2 tablespoons sugar for every pound of cleaned and hulled berries) and froze in quart-sized yogurt containers. I tossed approximately 10 overflowing cups of the processed berries with two cups of sugar and a broken-up vanilla bean and then tucked them into the fridge for a rest, so that they could get nice and vanilla-y. I washed and chopped nearly all of them (I kept about two quarts unchopped for plain old eating) within a couple of hours of getting them home. I brought home nearly 15 pounds of hard-earned berries (they were $1.35 a pound, I love how inexpensive things can be when you just invest a bit of your own labor). I stopped picked only when the back of my neck had turned a bright pink (I somehow only got sunscreen on my front, it made for an entertaining burn) and the knees of my jeans were stained red from kneeling on errant berries between the rows. We spent the rest of the morning in the field of Gaventa’s strawberry farm, crouching over the rows of plants, plucking handfuls of berries into our containers.
Several weeks ago, I got up early on Saturday morning, collected my friend Shay (she’s my regular fruit-picking buddy) and drove half an hour out into the New Jersey countryside.
0 kommentar(er)
