Tasty Thursday - Strawberry Jam

Welcome to the first edition of Tasty Thursday.

Yesterday I tried for the first time to make strawberry jam. Using Jamie Oliver's recipe for inspiration (as well as various other recipes culled from the internet) and spurred on by the strawberries that have been sitting in my fridge and were now begining to get mouldy, I was excited to get this new project underway. I saved all but three strawberries from the punnet.

I didn't do everything right. And I made mistakes along the way. But it was an interesting experience and one i will definitely be repeating with different fruit. (Mmm.. next time Orange Marmalade!)

One of the mistakes I made was that I cooled the jam before placing in the jar.

And another was that I probably should have let it boil abit longer since I wasn't using pectin. It was a little more syrupy than I wanted.

But the end result was still delicious and even though it probably wont last as long, I think it will be eaten long before it has a chance to go bad. I used no extra colourants and the photos aren't photoshopped.


The end result was quite pretty in fact :) And tastes divine!

Strawberry Jam Recipe
1 cup strawberries
(ranging from slightly overripe to slightly underripe)
1 cup brown sugar
1/8 cup lemon juice

Roughly chop up strawberries to uneven sizes and shapes leaning toward larger pieces
Using a whisk mash up the strawberries so that they're kinda mushy but still have large chunks visible
Place in a heavy bottomed pot making sure to scrape in every drop of juice, and turn the on stove to medium-low heat
Measure out the one cup sugar into the pot
Using the whisk, stir the mixture
Measure out the lemon juice and use it to rinse out the bowl used for the strawberries to get all the juice
Pour this mixture into the pot and stir until all the sugar has dissolved
Turn heat on high and bring to a boil stirring occassionally to ensure the jam doesnt burn
I did this for about 10-15 minutes (Next Time I will extend this to 30-45 mins)
Remove from heat and scrape off the foam that has formed on the top
Wash a glass jam jar and sterilise with boiling water
Empty jam into the jar until there is about an inch or so of space at the top
Seal and process if keeping for storage (boil in a large pot of water).

Since I only made the one jar, I did not do this last step. I sealed it, poured some boiling water over, allowed to cool and then placed in the fridge.The little left over there was (the jar I chose was just slightly not big enough), we ate on toast this morning for breakfast :)