Jam Making Adventures…. Continued!!

I know you have all been just dying to hear about my latest jam making calamities!! Well it hasn’t been so bad and I am learning by my (many) mistakes and this week I made Strawberry and Raspberry Jam all by myself. No jam making expert at my elbow this time!! She wasn’t even in the kitchen! After the fun (and success) of making the Summer Fruits Jam last week I thought I’d really get too big for my boots and make Strawberry and Raspberry Jam, together, you know, in the one pot! I’ve never had Strawberry and Raspberry jam before although I’m sure that it has been made plenty of times by loads of jammy experts, but it’s a new one on me and I thought I was being quite adventurous. While tackling the forest of weeds in the garden (I know, I know, I am a bad gardener) I happened to spot the raspberries were looking pretty ripe. Well most of them. So no “I’ll just wait for them to ripen” naivety this time. I whipped them bad boys offa that bush and into the kitchen! I only got a pound but better than none at all. As we have no strawberries (cause I ate them all already) I used a punnet of the Wexford strawberries from our Shop, which is also about a pound, and went about my jammy business. From previous experience I know to weigh the sugar and pop it into the oven to warm. Next I then prepare and weigh the fruit and put it into the pot. Then I like to mash the strawberries, with a potato masher, it’s great fun and means they’ll soften quicker when cooking so you don’t get big hard strawberries in your pot of jam. This time I used some lemon juice as both strawberries and raspberries are notoriously low in pectin and I was after a good jam set! I have also invested in a jam thermometer, for my sins, and it makes life much easier as it has “Jam Set” written on it and an arrow pointing to 103 Celsius. A bit of a no brainer really! Once my fruit had sufficiently softened I added the sugar and brought it up to setting point. Put my little tester blob on the testing dish, got a wrinkle and wey hey, quick as you like scooped the jam into my sterilized jars. I wasn’t too sure if this combination would work, I thought it would. I hoped it would and, in the words of Gift Grub’s Joan Burton, “can I just say” it was ddddddddddddddelish!! Strawberry and Raspberry Jam rocks!! I urge you to give a try, we have all the ingredients in the Shop including Jam Sugar for added culinary ease!