Day 8 - Cranberry Jam, The Making

Day 8 aka Part 2 of my Cranberry Jam happiness :). You may be wondering what could possibly be so exciting about making jam? Surely it's infinitely easier to pick up a jar from the shop and be done with it! Up until now I would have agreed but I have been converted, there is such a sense of achievement when you make these and they make amazing home-made gifts.

Cranberry Jam

Recipe

300g fresh Cranberries
8 roughly chopped strawberries (sorry I didn't weigh them)
500g jam sugar (you can add slightly less to taste)
1 lemon
1 small apple
small knob of butter


1. The day before you want to make the jam, mix together the sugar and berries in a large non-metallic bowl, cover and leave to soak overnight.

Sterilise the jam jars on the day you need them, by first washing and then allowing them to drip dry in an oven set to 140oC/275F/Gas Mark 1 for at least 30 minutes while you are making the jam. 

2. Pour all of the mixture into a preserving pan or a large wide-based pan. This is quite important as the pan will affect cooking times. I don't have a preserving pan but I used a saute pan which seemed to work OK. 

3. Peel, core and grate the apple and juice the lemon. Add both of them to the pan and mix well.

4. Place a saucer in the freezer. This will be used later as a test to make sure the jam is at the correct temperature.

5. Slowly heat the mixture on a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved. Once it is dissolved, bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and spoon a little of the mixture on to the saucer that was in the freezer. Once it is cool enough to touch, push the jam with your finger. If it has set correctly, the surface will have a slight wrinkle, if it is too runny then put the mixture back onto the heat and check every 2-3 minutes. The picture below shows you what a 'wrinkly' surface should look like.

6. Skim any scum off the top of the jam and mix in the knob of butter. Leave the jam to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes. This stops the fruit from sinking to the bottom of the jam jar. Then, carefully spoon the mixture into a warm jam jar (never put warm jam into a cold jar) and seal. The jars that I use already have seals but if they don't use a waxed paper disc cut to size.

The mixture I made was only enough to fill this jam jar which is all I needed but you may want to scale up the recipe accordingly if you want more.

I hope you do give this one a try, it's a bit fiddly but totally worth it :)

Peace & Love

xx

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