We’ve been keeping a close eye on the strawberries for the past week as most of the plants were heavy with fruit and waiting for a good splash of sunlight to ripen them. It’s important to pick the first and heaviest crop at just the right moment for jam-making, while also denying the birds their share.
Finally, in the space of two days, the strawberries went from green to pale pink through to red as they hit the early stages of ripeness. For jam making, we need the strawberries to be slightly under-ripe as it increases their pectin levels and ensures they’re firm enough to hold their shape when boiled. However, despite the boys’ claims to the contrary, keeping the under-ripe ones for jam-making does not mean the really ripe ones have to be eaten immediately.
I stuck to my standard recipe for strawberry jam, which meant that after weighing out 2kg of strawberries for the jam we still had 400g left over for eating immediately.
No, the leftover ones didn’t last long! Still, there are plenty more strawberries waiting to ripen—mulching them with well-rotted pig manure in early spring certainly paid off in terms of boosting yields.
I pulped three quarters of the strawberries for the jam, keeping back a quarter of the smallest, most firm berries to be added whole. I probably should up the number of whole strawberries as the opened jars of jam always seem to be missing their whole ones…
Eating aside, this is my favourite point in making strawberry jam. The jam is just off boiling point, releasing thick clouds of aromatic steam that fill the kitchen with the gorgeous scent of fresh strawberry. Heaven.
The end result: 10 580gm (20oz) jars of strawberry jam. We’ll use one jar now, while the rest will be spaced out over the 12 months and alternated with the other jams we’ll be making over the coming weeks. Oh, and a final piece of advice—don’t expect to get the same result every time when making jam to the same recipe. The cookbooks almost all promise identical results if you get the proportions right, the cooking time right and the amount of added pectin right. In reality it all comes down to the fruit, which varies from one day to the next, one week to the next and one season to the next. I’ve used this particular recipe many times and, in theory, it should deliver a nice medium set and indeed does so most of the time. Last year’s strawberry jam was more of a firm set, however, and this year’s is a slightly soft set. All because the strawberries had different pectin levels. What really matters is not the set, but the flavour and that is truly sublime.
Guess who has just finished up the jam they were given too!
Yes it did last that long, surprisingly, and no it didn’t go off. Mind you there was a fight over the last piece of strawberry.
I can’t wait for the redcurrants to ripen, so I can jam them. In the mean time I’m looking at the rhubarb plant & wondering what to do with it all. I’m not a homemade wine fan.
message for Steph in Roker…. how about rhubarb and ginger jam?
Have a look at rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.
Stoney, I love you.
Oo-er!
Another good one is rhubarb and raspberry jam, but you’ll need to buy a cookbook for that one.
I also make rhubarb chutney, but don’t seem to have put the recipe on the blog. Maybe later as I’m supposed to be doing paperwork at the moment.
looks good - I love making jam and preserving. must be instinct to store food!
DH made some strawberry jam two years ago when he found a local shop selling them for half-price. The fruit was just past its best and could not have sat on the shelves much longer, so the resultant jam was more like strawberry sauce than anything else. However the taste was wonderful and so much better than anything which you could buy in the shops. Yum.
We got three strawberries today, added some jam and made a milkshake.