The recipes I have found vary between preserving sugar and jam sugar. I know the latter has pectin in it, but am told that the jam will only last six months.
Please does anyone have a nice simple recipe for a tasty strawberry jam, that will set, and will keep for a year??
I used to just use granulated sugar and lemon juice...ours never got the chance to last a year ;D
Hello
I always use certo for my strawberry jam have a look on the certo website for recipes
http://www.certo.co.uk/Recipes.htm
Cheers
Brogusblue
As we made loads of Strawberry Jam last night we followed Delia's recipe.
4lb strawberries
3lb sugar
2 lemons (they contain pectin a setting agent)
Cut and layer sugar and strawberries, add juice. Leave overnight and then boil, using a cold saucer to test for setting, if you push your finger into the test set and it develops wrinkles that stay then it is set.
It is best to try on some small quantities first if you are planning to do a lot. I find strawberry jam the hardest to set and although the books say boil for 15 minutes to get a set I often need 30-45mins depending on the quantity and that is on a wok burner. You do have to keep stirring to ensure it doesn't stick and caramelise/burn.
As for a six months shelf life, this appears to be a new trend, my parents and grandparents prepared jam in this way and I don't remember a rush to eat it within this period. I still have a couple of jars from last year which are fine. But basic precautions such as washing and sterilising jars in the oven (or by other means) are important to achieve this.
Thanks both - those are exactly the sort of tips I need. Especially for how long these things can take.
My Boss makes hedgerow jelly using elderberry,sloes, rosehips,blackberrys and hawthorn berry all picked on the moors. She uses jam sugar and lemon to set it. It has kept for nearly two years without going "off." ;D :)
Don't tell anyone but it is amazing what you find tucked away in cupboards years on with no sign of anything nasty and still tasting fine.
I have occassionally seen jams crystalise but that tends to be after opening. So a screw top and a vacuum induced from covering when hot seems important.
OC
The lemon juice releases the pectin in the fruit, it doesn't actually add pectin (unless of couse you add the lemon flesh and pith, which I wouldn't do as the pith makes the jam bitter).
I find it best to use slightly under-ripe strawberries, or a mix of ripe and under-ripe, and mash them and cook them with fresh lemon juice first. No water. Or very little anyway as the strawberries have a high water content. Then add sugar in the proportion of 80% of the original weight of the dry strawberries, stir to dissolve and bring to 104 degrees C as quickly as possible.
I still have some strawberry jam left from last year & it's fine. Recently I had a small amount of strawberries & I made some jam in the microwave [Googled a recipe] it was sooooooo easy I shall probably stick to doing it that way in the future. :)
Youngest was making something at school and had to bring in strawberry jam........opened at school and I obviously hadn't sterilised it properly...mold on the top!! Needless to say daughter was well embarrassed, especially when the teacher flung it in the bin when daughter said my Mum would have scraped that off then cooked with it! :-[ ;D
What a cheek! A bit of judicious removal of the top layer would be fine by me.
What I actually understood was that "jam sugar" doesn't have as long a preserving quality as "preserving sugar". The jam sugar recipe also said once opened keep in fridge.
But from your postings, that's sounding like just a modern molly-coddle and I won't be doing with that!
See my post under "Mould on Jam"