Jams and Jellies
Making jams and jellies
A jam is a fruit conserve in which sugar and fruit chunks are boiled together. In a jelly, the juice is pressed or boiled out of the fruit, filtered and then boiled again with sugar to reduce and thicken it. It is important to keep in mind that some fruits are better for making jellies and others are better used in jams. Generally speaking, it’s easier to make a jam than it is to make a jelly.
Recipe for Jam
Ingredients:
A good quanity of soft, fleshy fruit like strawberries, peaches, cherries, plums, blueberries, brambles, …
Sugar or sugar with added pectine.
Lemon juice
Instructions: Clean the fruit, remove any stones, or leafs or other incomestible parts (depending on the fruit), wash it. If the fruit is not a small berry, then cut it up into small pieces. Put a large enough container on a scales, and put the fruit inside. Read the weight of the fruit, and then add the same weight of sugar to the fruit. If you are using a very juicy fruit, you may prefer to use sugar with added pectine. Pectine is naturally present in most fruits and will cause the jam to “set”, but some fruits contain less pectine and some contain more, so for some fruits it can be helpful to add some pectine to the mixture.
Sprinkle the fruit and sugar with lemon juice and stir well. Then cover the container and let the mixture rest for at least one hour in a clean, cool place to let the fruit absorb the sugar. After this, pour the mixture into a sufficiently large cooking pot. Traditionally, a copper pot is used, but any other cooking pot will do fine. Bring the mixture slowly to the boil on a low fire, stirring fregularly. Depending on the fruit, you will need to boil the mixture for about an hour. The jam is ready when it is thick enough. Check this by pouring a drop of the jam onto a cold plate. It should turn sticky and not be too runny.
To preserve the jam well, you should pour it into glass flasks or containers that have been sterilized by boiling them in water. Or you can also pasteurize the containers by washing them with boiling hot water. The inside of lids as well as the flasks should be waished if the latter method is used. The jam should be poured in rapidly in the still-hot containers. The containers with the jam can be sealed with a lid. In this case it’s best to let the air bubble that is in the flask traverse the still-hot jam by turning it upside-down after the lid has been placed. This is to disinfect the air bubble. Or, in stead of a lid, the jam can be protected by pouring molten parrafin on top op it, and closing of the jar with a paper that is held with a rubber band.
Serve with bread, toast, English muffins, or pancakes.