Allotments 4 All

I have promised my son (5) and daughter (3) that I will take them to the PYO farm to pick strawberries next week. Experience from last year tells me that we will come home with a truck load of strawberries (okay maybe that's a slight exaggeration)!

Does anyone have a really good recipe for strawberry jam?

Anne's recipe is 1lb strawberries, 14 0z of sugar and juice of 1 lemon. Simmer fruit until soft, Add sugar and juice. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Boil rapidly until it sets. Bottle. Enjoy.

Thanks for that Eric  :). Can I use any kind of sugar?

We use ordinary everyday castor sugar but you can use jam making sugar if you want.

This is my recepie
3lb Strwberries
3Lb jam sugar
4 tablesppons lemon juice.

Put berries in a pan with lemon juice. gently cook over a low heat fo 10 mins until berries have softened. Add sugar and continue cooking over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring jam to a rolling boil for 4 minutes (or until setting point is reached. Remove pan from heat and skim off any surface scum with a slotted spoon. Pot and Seal

You can use ordinary sugar but jam sugar is much more failsafe  especially regarding setting. I also find it much quicker

Dont forget to warm your jars and put wax discs on top of your jam though.

Thanks all, I will be making strawberry jam next week. I do have the wax discs for the jam lids but was wondering about one final question. Do I wait until the jam cools in the jars before sealing the lids or do I seal whilst still hot? Silly question I know!

Seal whilst still hot ;D (wax side down!) Oh and try and get small strawbs for your jam if poss. I have a recipe that you pour the sugar over the strawbs, and let sit overnight. They say it pulls the juice from the berries, and helps to keep them whole whilst cooking. Oh and don't forget to make a loaf of home made bread at the same time ;D

Thanks DP! I don't think I'll have much control over strawberry size though, have you ever tried to convince a 3 and 5 year old that the smaller ones are better!

When I bought my jam jars from Lakeland I also pathetically gave in to an impulse buy and bought an ice-cream maker so will have a bash at making some home-made ice cream as well, no prizes for guessing, the first batch will be strawberry ice-cream!  ;D

"Pathetically?"  Naaaa - sounds like good planning to me!  You can be SO much more adventurous with home-made ice-cream - good one!

All best - Gavin

Mmmmmmmm  home made ice cream! :)

I have made jam in the Micro-wave.Think i posted a recipe on here for lemoncurd done in the micro wave as well which is a lot less messy.

 If using your own jam jars, which all good recycling people should ;D, remember to sterilise them after washing out thoroughly.

This can be done easily in a low oven for 10 mins or so.

Debs

Thanks Debs, I was planning to pre-wash them in my dishwasher, would that not sterilise them enough?

Jess best to put hot jam into warm jars, stops em cracking!

i just made jam! can't believe it! but my strawberries are a wee bit floaty in the jars  :D i think that'll enhance the experience, it'll be chunky at the start of the jar and smoother at the bottom!!

Hey Legless, you may start a new trend and be bottling jam by the thousand supplying M&S or someone like that!  ;)

We went picking strawberries yesterday, dodjing the showers, and came home with almost a truck load of lovely yummy strawberries.  :D

Today I have made some strawberry ice cream which looks lovely, it's chilling in the freezer as I type.

Also made some frozen yoghurt ice lollies, guess what flavour? Strawberry! Should be ready by the time schools out.

And made some yummy strawberry jam. Thanks Eric, I used your recipe and (although I got talking on the phone and left them to boil for a bit too long) the jam looks very yummy.

Now I have some cream left over, mmmmm maybe I should go and make some lovely scones to go with my left over cream and strawberry jam.

ps Legless, read that if you let the jam cool slightly before filling the jars then the strawberries won't float on top!

Eton Mess (better then Eton Rifles -there's Jam link right there :) ) and you can work out any tensions bashing the meringues up.

Jeremy

Sounds very yummy Jeremy and the best part is that it's quick and easy to make!

Has anyone had strawberries cooked on a BBQ? Friends made fruit kebabs (strawberries, pineapple, banana etc) with rum and icing sugar I think. I will have to get the details and post it on Recipes4All. I think it was one of Ainsley's recipes.