This Is My Jam

Wow, it feels like forever since I've been active on this blog. At the moment I'm at one of those pivotal, lifechanging moments in my life, and I think today is the first day I've really had any time to sit down and appreciate the marvellous chaos I'm currently a part of. I'm not too certain on details yet, but regardless of what is happening, this small-town barmaid is a small-town barmaid no more. Things are getting really exciting, and I feel like over the past week I've visited almost all of the south of the country. Still, for the moment I'm back home, and tending my little garden, in which the ripe and unripe tomatoes look like little traffic light dots, and the runner beans are trying to climb the washing line; and I'm feeling good.

I haven't been cooking so much recently, but before this frenzy there came a rut, in which all I did was huddle over the stove, swearing to myself and stirring a la the opening witchy scenes of Macbeth. It wasn't a predicting the future kind of thing, mind, it was a mechanism via which to stay sane in the present. I even got myself back into preserving. Now, since this is what I'll call backlog blogging, I can't say you'll find the ingredients with any relative ease at this time of year; but this is as much a diary for me as a suggestion to my readers, so I'll call this a kind of posterity post.

In keeping with my last post about raspberry and elderflower cupcakes, in early September I was still finding a whole bunch of excellent Summer produce, in glut-sized proportion, for silly money. Again, today, we're talking berries, but this time, the perennial English favourite, the strawberry. Now, wimbledon is over, so I had no problem eating a whole bunch of them with cream, because I wasn't being told to by advertisers everywhere; but I did buy 2kg of the things (they were so cute...I had to), so I needed a more sensible solution to what to do with them.

I decided on the most English of preserves: Strawberry jam. It makes you think of red and white gingham and scones just saying it, huh? I'm not really a gingham kind of girl, but I might fancy playing at being one on any given day, so a few jars of homemade strawberry jam in the cupboard for when the mood strikes me seems like a good idea. Although I'm sure you'll believe me more if I say I've mostly been piling it on toast to accompany a black coffee or seven of a morning.

So anyway, who do you turn to in the case of preserves? Who else but my jarring, bottling, and infusing guru, Pam Corbin? No one else. Obviously. I have nothing but love for her simple, friendly approach to preserving, and sort of want her to adopt me so I can go live with her and preserve all day and sew cool aprons for us to wear all night. So, without further ado, here is my very picture heavy approach to strawberry jam, taken from her River Cottage Preserves Handbook:

Strawberry Jam

makes 4-5 340g jars

1kg strawberries, hulled, larger ones halved or quartered
500g granulated sugar
450g jam sugar (it's labelled as such and has added pectin which helps the set)
150ml lemon juice

Put 200g of the strawberries into a preserving pan with 200g of the granulated sugar. Crush to a pulp with a potato masher. At which point it will look like this:


Place the pan on a gentle heat and, when the fruit mixture is warm, add the rest of the strawberries. Very gently bring to a simmering point, agitating the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to prevent the fruit from sticking. Simmer for 5 minutes to allow the strawberries to soften just a little. At which point it will look like this:


Add the remaining granulated sugar and the jam sugar. Stir gently to prevent the sugar sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan. When the sugar has dissolved, add the lemon juice. It'll look a bit like this:

Increase the heat and, when the mixture reaches a full boil, boil rapidly for 8-9 minutes. Then test for setting point. (I do this by dropping some onto a cold saucer and poking it with a finger to see if it puckers; if it puckers it's ready). Mine looked like this at setting point:


Remove from the heat and, if the surface is scummy, stir gently to disperse. Pot and seal. Use within 12 months.

So that's strawberry jam. i forgot to take4 pictures of the potted and sealed jam because I am something of an airhead, but you get the idea. I only got two jars, because one of them was disproportionately large (previously containing mayonnaise. Whoever tells you you can't recycle jars for preserving is probaboly in the glass industry, because I'm telling you now that you can, and you should if you give two fucks about the environment)

My jam was really nice; I have been eating it on toast for breakfast every morning I've woken up in my own bed (and there are pluses and minuses to this scenario: the strawberry jam on toast being one of the pluses). I am not really a strawberry jam aficionado; since when I was little, which seems to be the halcyon jam eating days in most people's lives, my heart belonged solely to apricot, but this is definitely better than the shop-bought stuff by a mile. The only problem with my jam was that the fruit seemed to float to the top of the jars, which according to Pam means I didn't take quite enough care dissolving the sugar before bringing the mixture to the slightly scary high-speed boil it needs before it becomes jam. It would seem I still have a way to go before I can be her preserving/apron-making apprentice extraordinaire, but in the meantime I have the wherewithal, should i want to, to make scones and victoria sponges all winter long. And who doesn't want to do that?