Mamta's Kitchen

Jams, Ian's Definitive Guide To Jam Making

Jams, Ian's Definitive Guide To Jam Making

Ian Hoare

Jam making is simple, once you understand the principles. You need to find out whether your fruit has high, medium or low pectin. You have to a) provide enough acidity and pectin, to use the magic proportions of 1 lb sugar to 1 pint of cooked fruit, b) to dissolve the sugar slowly AND COMPLETELY and then boil down fast, and c) to cook till you are SURE you have reached a good set.

A standard jam contains the proportion of 1.25 lbs cooked fruit and 1 lb sugar. Total weight 2.25 lbs of which 1 lb is sugar even if the fruit had contained none.

It also helps to estimate whether the fruit is delicate or powerful. VERY generally, fruits which are powerful in flavour have plenty of pectin, blackcurrant is a good example. However some fruits such as crab apples (and even more so for unripe green apples and redcurrants) have loads of pectin, but light or unassertive flavours. They make good additives for other fruits which have bags of flavour and perhaps lack a bit of pectin (strawberries would be classic).

If made properly and sealed under metal lids, you can expect jams to keep at least two years without coming to any harm, some even improve with age.

Ingredients

  • Fruit

  • Large pan

  • Muslin bag , if making jellies

  • Sugar

  • jam thermometer

  • 1 plate chilling in the fridge/freezer, to test for 'setting point'

  • Metal funnel to fill jars

  • Jars with screw top lids preferably

  • Labels; name, ingredients and date bottled

Instructions

  1. Here are the basic steps to jam making:

  2. *Pectin test.

  3. **Preparation of the fruit.

  4. ***Cooking the fruit to a soft stage.

  5. ****Understand the principle of calculating the amount of sugar required.

  6. *****Acidity of the fruit; Acid is required to render pectin soluble.

  7. ******Bottling and labelling the jams.

  8. *Pectin Test: Drop a teaspoon of cooked juice into double the amount of pure alcohol (methylated spirit is fine). The way the globs are formed tells you the pectin levels. A clotted lump indicates rich pectin. If there are broken lumps, it is medium pectin and if there are only flaky bits formed, it is poor in pectin. VERY generally, fruits which are powerful in flavour have plenty of pectin, blackcurrant is a good example. However some fruits such as crab apples (and even more so unripe green apples and redcurrants) have loads of pectin, but light or unassertive flavours. They make good additives (mixing of low and high pectin fruits) for other fruits which have bags of flavour and perhaps lack a bit of pectin (strawberries would be classic).

  9. ** Preparation of fruit: In the case of fruits with stone, you would stone/pit them first. For others, you will peel/core/chop/slice etc. For making jellies there's no need, as you'll filter the cooked fruit later.

  10. ***You can soften the prepared fruit in the microwave, which is what I nearly always do. When making jams or jellies for the first time, it makes a lot of sense to do to so in the microwave, as it is clean, simple, and very quick for small quantities and rarely burns. You do not need to add any water, when cooking in a microwave. Otherwise, cook in a pan, on its own or with some water. Whichever method you use, get the fruit completely soft. If your fruit has small pips and you want to remove them, strain by pushing hard through a sieve (though in the case of blackberries and raspberries, many people leave the pips in). Make sure as much of the pulp goes through as possible.

  11. **** Sugar: Taste the softened pulp. Is it quite sweet? How strong is it? If VERY powerful, it's not too late to add a little more water. If it's sweet, you may want to adjust the sugar down slightly when it comes to calculate. Finally, measure the volume of pulp and calculate the weight. In general principles, 1 litre or 2 pints of comp�te (stewed fruit with sugar), including water/lemon and its liquid, will need 750-800 gm. or 2 lb. of sugar, though for very sweet fruits you might want to reduce that a bit down.

  12. ****** Acidity; If the comp�te doesn't have plenty of acidity, lemon juice can help, or redcurrant pur�e, for red fruits.

  13. Make sure your pots, jars & lids are sterilising, and that such apparatus as you're using � a plate in the fridge, tipping jug, jam thermometer, slotted spoon (I use a stainless steel skimmer), spatula & jam funnel (I also use a fan to prevent the jam from boiling over) are all in place. Thermometers are not always too accurate, so it may be worthwhile checking how they read by immersing them in boiling water (212�Fahrenheit or100� C).

  14. Put your comp�te and sugar in a wide & shallow (or preserving) pan, and dissolve the sugar over gentle heat, stirring regularly until there's no crunch at the bottom of the pan. Swirl round the mixture and then test in the middle for un-dissolved sugar.

  15. As soon as you're sure the sugar is dissolved, bring heat to maximum (I use a HUGE tripod burner with three concentric rings) and bring to the boil, stirring fairly regularly - you don't want the jam to burn at the bottom. Once boiling has been established, check the temperature and boil to 220˚F or 105˚C (there's a mark on a thermometer for �jam�). When that's reached, take out the thermometer, so it's not in the way.

  16. Now start testing. Swirl the jam around with the spoon and then lift it out of the jam vertically. Check the last few drops as they fall. If they tend to form a sheet, or drip in heavy globs in several places, it's worth trying the only really reliable test - the wrinkle test. Turn the heat right down/or off. Take the plate from the fridge, and after stirring the jam again, let a few dribbles fall on the plate. With experience you'll have a good idea just looking at it, by the way. Now pop the plate back in the fridge quickly, and leave it exactly 1 minute. Take it out again and using your forefinger, push through the flat blob of jam. If the jam is ready, it will wrinkle up in front of your finger as you push. If it does, move on to bottling. If not, put the plate back in the fridge, cook another 5 minutes and test again.

  17. To bottle

  18. Take jars from oven, drain lids in a colander, shaking to get rid of water. Place lids, inside down, on sheets of paper towel.

  19. Fill the jars right near to the brim, and put a lid on as quickly as possible. Tighten well (J-cloths help to hold things without burning your hand) and turn upside down. The reason for this? First of all, to re-sterilise the lid, in case any spores got onto the inside after removing from boiling water and before sealing down. More importantly, to make a really good seal. By turning upside down as soon as the jars are filled, the consequent shaking creates a positive pressure inside the jars, which forces a tiny amount of jam into the interstices (cracks) between lid and jar, and making a perfect seal. After five minutes, turn the jars the right way up again. You'll never have a problem with any kind of mould or fermentation. And that's a promise from someone who makes more than 30 pots each of at least 10 different jams and has done so for over 12 years. You do not need wax paper discs when you use this method.

  20. Give them a preliminary wipe with a damp cloth, and repeat when cold before labelling and storing.

Notes

  • I make the following jams;

  • Strawberry, which is a low pectin fruit. To compensate for this, I poach the strawberries briefly in redcurrant puree in the ratio of 1 kg strawberries to the puree made from 500 gm. redcurrants. They don't need long cooking.

  • Apricot, Blackberry (wild if I can get them), Blueberry, Plum. These four have enough pectin and acidity (be a little careful over the plum as they can vary a lot). Follow the general recipe above. You can add the juice of a lemon to every three or four pounds of prepared apricot, if you like, and some apple to the blackberry too.

  • Marmalade from Seville oranges (bitter wild oranges), which have a very short season, in January and February. I also make marmalade with lemons. You can use other citrus fruits, but see specific recipes are for these fruits only. If you use sweet oranges, remember to use some lemons as well and that pips contain pectin.

  • Tip: save all you glass jars over the year and ask your friends to save them too. You will never run out of screw top jars!

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