Easy Peasy Strawberry Jam
Makes 1l iced green tea, approx 1.3l with apple juice added.
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You will need:
1.5kg strawberries
1kg jam sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
Knob of butter
Clean glass jars
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1. Hull the strawberries and cut into largish chunks. (Don’t just slice the tops off! Use a small pointed knife, get the point in under the leaves at a slight angle, and rotate it to remove the core.)
2. Put them in a large pan and add the jam sugar. Give it a stir, cover with a tea towel and leave overnight or for at least six hours, to macerate the fruit and dissolve the sugar.
3. Next day, put a plate in the freezer to use later for testing the set, and turn the oven on to 120C to heat up. Add the lemon juice and give it a stir. Bring to the boil, and boil (steadily but NOT too hard) for eight minutes, then start testing for a set.
4. Put a pound coin-sized dollop of jam onto your cold plate and put it back in the freezer for a minute (leave the pan on and boiling).
5. Then push it with your finger and see if the skin wrinkles. If it does, it’s ready. If not, wipe the jam off, stick the plate back in the freezer, give the jam a further couple of minutes’ boiling and test again.
6. Repeat till you’re happy with the set, then take the pan off the heat and add a knob of butter to disperse any scum. NB if it starts to seriously darken in colour and smell burnt before it’s set, take it off the heat. Caramelised strawberry jam is not great: better to have a softer set.
7. Wash the jars in hot soapy water, then put in the oven for ten minutes to sterilize them.
8. Put the lids in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil, then drain and place on some clean kitchen towel.
9. Once the jam has had ten minutes to settle and the jars are dry, use a jug (not a plastic one) to decant the jam into the jars, filling up to within 1 cm from the top. If you have waxed covers, pop them on before topping with the lids, but they’re not essential.
Enjoy with bread, toast, scones, pancakes, and Victoria sandwich cakes.