September 14, 2015

Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam

fruit, easy, homemade, Jam, recipe, strawberry, 士多啤梨, 果醬, 自製, no pectin

Recently I've happily discovered an important fact.  It turns out that you can make your own homemade fruit jam pretty easily and quickly!  Wow, oh wow!  

I've always hankered after making my own fruit jams, dreaming of the fresh, sweet sticky goodness that I could feed my family (and myself, of course!) if only I could make my own jam.  But I was intimidated by all the talk of canning jars and sterilization and super large pots of boiling fruit.  It all sounded so serious and ultra time consuming!  

And then I found out (by finally watching the amazing Great British Bake Off, OMG I'm totally obssessed with that show!) that if you only wanted one jar of jam to eat, why, that was easy peasy to make!  And so I tried it out and made my first jar of Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam.  Just like that I was in jammy heaven, sunshine and happiness in a jar! 

Easy, Homemade, Strawberry, Jam, recipe,  士多啤梨, 果醬, 自製, no pectin

And it all only took me around 15 to 20 minutes!  To make my very own beautifully red, jammy, filled with fresh strawberry chunkiness jam!  Hey, seriously, I think that's pretty cool.  Going to have me some homemade fruit jam all year around from now on.  

Make one jar of jam at a time, finish it off with a week or so by dipping into it continuously throughout  the days: jam on toast, jam on muffin, jam on ice cream, jam in cake, jam in cookie, jam and peanut butter sandwiches...  What can I say?  Pure jammy heaven in a jar!

Easy, Homemade, Strawberry, Jam, recipe,  士多啤梨, 果醬, 自製, no pectin

And of course I have to find out how easy it is to make jam at the end of summer...sigh.  Well that's just my luck to miss out on the summery bounty of fruit, the mangos, the apricots, the berries...  But never mind.  There 's still plenty of fruit year around nowadays.  

The other day we happened upon lots of delicious strawberries, super ripe and on sale, and I knew right away that it was a sign that I had to make some homemade strawberry jam.  

Easy, Homemade, Strawberry, Jam, recipe,  士多啤梨, 果醬, 自製, no pectin

Making the jam was every bit as easy as it promised to be, so easy, in fact, that I let my little girl help me with make most of it, to her delight.  She loves helping me in the kitchen but is often banned from helping because she tends to cause more of a mess than anything else.  But to be fair she's getting a lot better (i.e. less clumsy) as she's growing up!

You're probably wondering why there's a big piece of lemon in my pot of strawberry jam.  When I used to read the recipes for making jams they always called for pectin.  Pectin!?  Where could I get that in Hong Kong?  It all seemed so complicated.  

But it turns out that lemons and some other fruits like apple (the peels and the cores) are naturally high in pectin and if added to your jam fruit, can provide enough pectin to set your jam.  Lemon also enhances the tart flavor of strawberries really well so lemon it was.

Easy, Homemade, Strawberry, Jam, recipe,  士多啤梨, 果醬, 自製, no pectin
Yeah!  Jamminess achieved!
The only sorta hard part to making homemade strawberry jam was the 'jammy-ness' test that you have to do to figure out if your jam is 'set' yet or not.  It was hard because I was being clumsy (my turn now!) and kept getting hot jam on my hand.  OUCH, that jam is HOT!  So don't get it on your finger.  Or on your hand.  Or ANYWHERE.  

You just need to get it on the back of a chilled in the freezer spoon.  (You would think I could handle that, but no apparently not.)  That will cool the jam down quickly so you can do the put your finger through the jam test.  If a clear trail is observed on the back of your spoon, the jam is set!

My little jar of Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam.  Quick and simple to make.  Just catch a windfall of jammable fruits and you'll have your own jar of beautiful jam in no time at all.  Oh, did I mention about the taste of our homemade jam?  Well, well what do you know?  It hands down beat all the jams we had ever eaten (licked, stuffed our faces into...) before.  It was the best jam that we had ever had!  Pure sunshiney fruitiliciousness!

Easy, Homemade, Strawberry, Jam, recipe,  士多啤梨, 果醬, 自製, no pectin
Easy Homemade Strawberry Jam Recipe
(makes 500 ml /1 pint)  Prep time: 1 min   Cook time: 6 mins

Ingredients:

  • 1 sterilized heat proof jam jar
  • 2 pints strawberries, 700g
  • 1 lemon
  • 2 1/4 cups sugar, 500g
  • pinch salt

Directions:

Put a couple of spoons to cool in the freezer.  

Clean and chop fruits roughly.  Slice a 1" wedge off the end of lemon.  Put fruit, sugar, salt in a small pot, squeeze lemon juice from wedge into pot and throw in the lemon rind as well.  Cook over medium heat.  Use a masher to mash up some of the fruit while leaving some pieces chunky.

When the fruit boils, stir the pot continuously for around 6 mins or until you notice the fruit become thicker.  Do spoon test by dribbling some jam on to the back of the spoon, and then running one finger through it.  If you can make a clear trail through the jam and it stays clear, then your jam is set.  If not cook another minute and test again.  Do a taste test as well, being careful as the jam will be hot.  Add more sugar or lemon juice to adjust taste to your liking.  

Pour into your prepared jam jar and let cool to room temperature.  Cover and refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.

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