Jammy!

On Saturday we bought some strawberries. This was during our afternoon/evening out with my parents to celebrate my birthday so was perhaps one of those ides that seemed better at the time than it maybe would have done under different circumstances. Hey ho - as always they probably were more intended for Henlow than for us to eat anyway and at the time that we walked past a market stall they were being sold off cheap.

When we looked at them again on Sunday morning - after they'd been dragged around with us playing mini golf, eating in a restaurant and to a fair few bars - they were starting to look ever so slightly worse for wear. There were a fair few out of the two punets that were good enough for us, ok again mostly Henlow, to eat but most of them were a little too mushy really.

So, for the first time ever, we decided to make jam with them. The recipe that we found online seemed fairly simple. Using a good, heavy bottomed pan, Chuck the strawberries in a pan and cook down for a few minutes.

Add a small amount of water (you can also use lemon juice if you don't want your jam to be quite as sweet) and then add equal quantity of sugar to the amount of strawberries that you started with.

This then has to be stirred in and brought to a rolling boil. Lower the heat slightly so it is still bubbling but will not boil over - do not stir any more! This is soo difficult to do but does work. We did stir very gently after about 10 minutes but this was just to release any strawberries that had stuck to the bottom.

Left to boil for 20 minutes (ish) and it begins to look a little bit like Jam. Keep checking it between 10 and 20 minutes.

To test if this is done, drop a small amount onto a cold plate (the recipe suggests leaving one in the freezer but we just ran it under a cold tap) and run your finger through the jam. If it wrinkles on the plate then the jam is ready.

Leave the jam to cool for about 10 minutes and remove any scum that forms on the top of the pan. Once this has cooled a little, pour into a sterilised jar to keep it fresh. Once the jam has cooled this can be put in the fridge.

Ideally this should be done in a non-stick pan but it can still be tricky to get the pan clean once you have finished. Try boiling some water with a dash of lemon juice in the pan if you are having trouble getting the pan clean. It should help to de-stick some of the remaining strawberries.

Normally I am not a huge fan of toast for breakfast but I have had jam on toast for the last two days and it has been absolutely lovely!

This is definitely well worth doing if you have some fruit that is going past its best before you have a chance to eat it raw.

Please comment and let me know how you get on if you try to make any jam yourself. I would particularly be interested if you have made jam with other fruits (although with Henlow we do tend to buy more strawberries than anything else!)