“You’ve got a great talent” Mr NQN said to me one evening.
I smiled, I wondered what he was going to say. Cooking? Singing (ok perhaps not)?
“You have a talent for getting in my way whenever I’m trying to do things” he said giving me a look.
Hmmm… well that wasn’t the sort of compliment I was expecting. But as Queen Viv calls me Pollyanna I took the compliment and ran with it. “Why thank you! I do try” I said sunnily while he shook his head pityingly at me.
It may be true that I do try and complicate things but that is not a route that I purposely choose. Also there are some things that on the surface appear complicated but in fact aren’t which is actually a favourite combination of mine. Case was point was a recipe for three day strawberry jam from the new Rose Petal Jam cookbook that I was sent to review. It is a recently released travel memoir of a Summer in Poland by Beata Zatorska and Simon Target. It’s a stunning book with evocative prose and photos reminiscent of Tess Kiros’s Apples for Jam and makes you want to visit Poland and explore its cuisine and with each page you turn, you let out a sigh.
The three day strawberry jam was the second recipe that I tried from the book and it was spurred on by the glut of strawberries that we seem to have in the stores and markets. The first recipe I tried was their Polish poppyseed cake which I am sad to report didn’t turn out at all. There was some technique missing from the instructions (like activating the yeast initially) and the result was something of an exploding, non rising disaster. However this jam seemed easy enough despite the protracted name. The method simply involves simmering the strawberries in an equal weight of sugar to release the juice and then leaving it on the stovetop. Then on the second and third day doing the same but on the third day you pour it into jars.
It’s a slightly runny jam with extra liquid. This is because there is no pectin, apple seeds or peel added so that is to be expected in a way although I was surprised at how lusciously liquid it was. At first I thought that this couldn’t go on a sandwich until I found a multitude of other things to eat it on-pancakes, crepes or icecream were three that immediately came to mind and I subsequently used it for. The book didn’t specify how to sterilise the jars which is an important part of the canning process and this helps to ensure that your jams and preserves keep. So whilst I can say the book is stunning and makes a gorgeous gift, I do think some of the recipes lack crucial details for success. But this jam worked once I used my own instructions for sterilising the jars and I adored how chunky the fruit was, how delicious the syrup was as well as how easy the jam was to make.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever buy cookbooks just to look and pore over the photos? What’s your favourite cookbook for photos?
Three Day Strawberry Jam
Adapted from Rose Petal Jam: Recipes and Stories from a Summer in Poland published by Tabula Books RRP$49.99
- 1 kilo strawberries
- 1 kilo caster or superfine sugar
- 2 vanilla beans, each cut in two and then split down the centre (optional)
- 4-5sterilised jars (to sterilise, heat the jars and lids in a 180c/350F for 10 minutes)
The strawberries and sugar first cooking
Day 1: After the first cooking process
1. Wash and dry strawberries. Remove the calyx and cut in half and place in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add in the caster sugar and set on low to medium heat shaking the pan to distribute the sugar. The strawberries will release juice and form a syrup with the sugar. Scrape the vanilla seeds out of the vanilla pods if using and add to the pot. Leave to cool on the stove with the lid on.
Day 2: After the second cooking process (also cooled)
Day 3: Boiling on the third day
2. The next day remove any scum that may have come to the surface if there is any (there wasn’t any on this batch) and reheat the mixture and simmer for 20 minutes again then cool on the stovetop. Repeat the process on the third day but while it is still hot, place it in the sterilised jars and fit with the lids. Turn upside down to create a seal and then right side up again. Using gloves as it will be hot try and turn it tighter by one go.
The finished jam and syrup
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81 Comments | Add your own
Mmmhhh, it must be very fragrant and taste just divine!
Cheers,
Rosa
Sounds delicious! Strawberries are fabulous at the moment, aren’t they?
I haven’t made jam since I was a teenager but there is something very appealing about this recipe. I will be giving it a go soon! Thanks Lorraine
The jam and the book (even though I only see the cover) look very nice! I want to go to the book shop to look at the book:) Yes, I just look at the photos;) Soon I will have access to a ‘proper’ camera so I can take some hopefully proper looking photos yay:)
Oh the poppy seed cake didn’t work:( It is on my baking ‘to do list’ though yeast kind of scares me:|
This ‘jam’ reminds me of the wonderful strawberry preserves my mom used to make; she didn’t use pectin either, and I loved how liquidy it was. YUM!
I love looking at cookbook photos! I think cook books aren’t worth it if there aren’t photos!
there are so many wonderful cookbooks – it is so very hard to choose just one favourite!
ps – this jam looks wonderful
love making jam. I love just eating it with fresh sourdough and the best butter you can find x
I’m always in Ben’s way!
the bright colour and chunky bits in the jam suggest a delicious jam although it seems more like a thick sauce..interesting to see if it keeps well..love a pretty cookbook but i’m a bit tired of being seduced by photos so i resist unless i think the book has lots of culinary merit too..
I was given the Quay restaurant book for my birthday – the pictures are to die for!!! There are, however, only a couple of recipes I’d even consider trying (the 8 texture chocolate cake is one) as the rest have unusual (and hard to get) ingredients or id require a new kitchen full of gadgets and equipment to successfully make them!
Very interesting recipe. I wonder what the point of cooking it three times is?
I think when I buy a cookbook, fantastic photos are a must! The reality is that I might cook 2-3 recipes from a whole cookbook, so the rest must be food-porn. I think Donna Hay has some fantastic food photography.
I love the jam recipe!
I just pore over the photos of my expensive restaurant inspired cookbooks, as well as Austalian Gourmet Traveller.
The ‘real cooking’ happens from the pages of Donna Hay, Nigella, Food Ideas (can’t remember the whole title) and stuff I download from taste.com.au.
SSG xxx
Three days is a long time. Are the flavors more developed? The first and last time I bought a cookbook was at uni. It was from a garage sale – it was dessert focused and everything looked so complex that I never used it! Lesson learnt, look carefully before you buy!
This jam looks superb! I love cookbooks with beautiful photos and do spend hours pouring over them. Hard to pick a favourite for photos – Donna Hay’s Seasons, anything by Tessa Kiros and the Laduree cookbook are up there.
Strawberries are everywhere at the moment and so so so sweet. The jam looks delicious Lorraine. I love homemade Jams. I really like how the strawberries kept their shape.
i don’t own a cookbook unfortunately. ;(
That looks too good, Lorraine and I love the cover of the book.. great art direction. I have a friend who cooks her strawberry jam with nothing but berries and sugar and I love it. Wonder what the 3 day process does to flavor. I like the extra liquid myself but it would be a little messy on bread!
I’ve never really liked strawberry jam, but was recently given a jar of the Bonne Maman Strawberry Jam in a hamper. I’ve since discovered that it’s really cooked cookied into porridge with soy milk and topped with sunflower butter. I bet this jam would make it even better
I must admit I love a cookbook that has plenty of photos, especially of the dish I am making so I know what it is meant to look like.
Hahaha! You have the same talent as J, I won’t see him for two hours, but as soon as I try and do something in the kitchen he is in there getting in my way!
I always buy cookbooks just to pore over and I have all of the gorgeous Tessa Kiros ones just for that – I’ve only ever made one recipe out of them – and it’s excellent! The chicken wings from Apples for Jam… Yum!
That recipe looks interesting. I love when strawberries come in season and are so cheap. I always make strawbery jam at this time of year, mine is a very simple recipe (if you could call it that). I just mix the strawberries with a little sugar (few spoons) & some lemon juice and cook them in the microwave for 20-30 min or until the jam looks ready. I like it when its runny, more like a strawberry sauce.
I buy cookbooks all the time & I mostly buy them just to look at them. I love Donna Hay, I like the simplicity of her recipes & photos. I recently bought “Food for gifts” from QBD for just $7 because it looked so beautiful (saw it at Wheel & Barrow for something like $40). I daydreamed how I start cooking & give away beautiful food to my frieds as a gift, hasn’t happened yet, but I made lots od spicy nuts at Xmas (NQN recipe) and packaged them very nicely and gave them away to friends & collegues!
Loving these pictures!!
I really love making jams…they’re generally not as hard as people might think and they can make really lovely presents. I definately do get cookbooks just to look at the pictures (with the intention of trying the recipes one day!) because some of them are too hard to resist. My favourite one at the moment which I’ve taken off the shelf just to look at more than a few times is my Women’s Weekly one about Afternoon Teas…not overly fancy, but still really nice to look at
I love to make jams the old-fashioned way without added pectin… Three days on the stove is interesting. Do you refrigerate overnight? This one looks beautiful…
Yum! Makes me feel like some scones with cream.
Oh it does look like Tessa Kiros! Love it. I hope they have a picture of the gold leaf-flecked vodka I drank in Poland. And the jam looks divine. Please post me a jar ASAP
Hmm, one thing about some cookbooks that REALLY bugs me is recipes that aren’t tested properly (or in some cases, at all). I’m afraid that when it comes to cookbooks, looks aren’t enough for me.
i would never buy a cookbook unless it has a photo to go with the recipee.i want to know what the finished dish looks like.its just that, that makes me want to make the dish. i love cooking from nigella’s express. so quick and easy.
however i have bought books just for their pictures!
I adore strawberry jam.
It reminds me so much of my Russian granny who has passed.
She used to make us pancakes with strawberry jam for a treat!
I DO hope you write down all the ‘bon mots’ twixt yourself and Mr NQN: you’d have a wonderful book there by itself
) I’ll pass on the jam, as you know I shall, BUT – cookery books: with over 600 on my shelves + magazines + files and files or recipes from bygone days? Methinks Kylie Kwong’s ‘My China’, which won the best cookery book of the year last season: fantastic photography. To me, the best book from which to actually cook just has to be Belinda Jeffery’s ’100 faves’, barely pipping Charmaine Solomon’s fabulous tome on vegetarian cooking, east and west 
!
This looks like a lovely recipe. I love jam but gosh when I look at the amount of sugar you have to add it really does freak me out.
Don’t understand how cookbooks are released without being tested properly. Very unfortunate.
Yummmm….These stawberry jam photographs are definitely up there among your best, Lorraine.
Kylie Kwong, Donna Hay, Bill Granger….. Speaking of food porn…can’t wait for the release of your book
Looks beautiful, not a jam fan but if I have it during vacations, I love the chunks of whole fruit in it..
—-Lorraine,
IS there anything that you cannot do? Anything? This jam looks equisite. My mom and dad just canned their jam. They go thru is like Crazy. xx
PS. Name one thing you can’t do!
Strawberry jam is my fave
shame they dont tell you everything you need to know i the book though.
Im very guilty of buying cookbooks for the pood porn haha. Its an addiction!
Beautiful photos of delicious looking red, ripe strawberry jam. This would go perfectly with your next True Blood dinner.
and for some reason i read pearl jam cookbook….
that sounded interesting too
It looks lovely, but definitely not jammy. I buy cookbooks without photos if I like the sound of the recipes, but I sometimes also buy cookbooks for the photography and styling, even if the recipes are rubish! I’m hoping that I will somehow absorb the skills involved via osmosis. Maybe?
Three days to make jam?? Whoa! I have made pizza dough that took three days to make. But fortunately, most of that is idle time while the dough ball ferments and rises. Mmm, I’m going to have to build up my stamina to make this multiple-day jam.
I’m loving all the strawberries in season at the moment. A batch of strawberry jam is on my need to do list too.
So many beautifully photographed cookbooks about these days.
There does seem to be lots of strawberries around at the moment, passionfruit as well. A very interesting process for making jam, a new one for me, but does achieve a beautiful looking jam.
PS where did you find your lovely “homemade” jam jars Lorraine?
Hi Jaqi-I have been racking my brain to remember where I bought that from! I think I got a while back because I can’t seem to remember. But if I do recall I’ll definitely let you know!
it’s a shame the recipes are missing a few steps! i remember once my dad made me a “moist chocolate cake” from donna hay that literally had… no liquid in it. it was so dry we had to drown it in icecream… i was okay with it
Your decription of this jam has me salivating!!! Actually as much as I love looking at beautiful cookbooks with glorious photos if the recipes don’t work, miss steps or are incomplete I get really annoyed.
Oh delish!
I don’t know about buy them just for that but I quite often get out a cook book and pour over the pictures. It’s one of my favourite pastimes!
I just love your site ! Best looking food site around
I love strawberry ice cream and strangely enough I can still find fresh strawberries in Holland. I have tried many a strawberry jam and I’m intrigued by this one. I’ll give it a try!
Magda
Sheer edible gorgeousness! Only, I’m all thumbs at making jam so I dare not try making this myself. Still, kudos to you for making something so scrumptious.
You know what you should make? Mini jam pies!
Definitely looks gorgeous but sounds more like strawberries preserved in syrup rather than a jam!
mmm love that picture with the big berries and reflective juices
Cute jam jars Lorraine,they would make for nice additions to gift hampers and gourmet packs…
I’ve picked up Pierre Hermes chocolate dessert ck bk(but its in frech)so yes, its for the eye candy value..
I usually buy cookbooks with photos of all of ther recipes. It gives me so much more motivation (& hunger!) to make the recipe when I can picture the delicious end result! Also the photos tend to make the recipes look doable….come to think of it, this could be a subconscious marketing strategy…well it works on me!
Oooh, I love chunky fruit jams!
This looks just lovely! If I didn’t have such an interest in design books as well, I’d buy cookbooks all the time just to look at pictures….but alas that money thing…
This looks so delicious. I imagine that syrup would be AWESOME over vanilla ice cream
I’ll browse cookbooks if I’m in a bookstore, but otherwise the internet & blogs like this are my recipe sources.
The jam looks beautiful, sounds easy and will probably get made next year when my infant strawberry patch produces : )
On the net I found a recipe for Warp Speed Pumpkin butter – made in the microwave!!!
So far I’ve adapted it to make pear butter & peach/raspbery preserves as well as the original pumpkin (that tastes like pumpkin pie)
Basically – to make 1 pint – you cook cutup fruit for 5 minutes at High, then add sugar & spices and cook on High 10 minutes more.
I wash pint jars in really hot soapy water then dry them upside down on a clean towel while the fruit is cooking.
No sterilizing needed if you store them in the freezer or fridge.
This reminds me of my Mom’s strawberry preserves–nice memories. Looks great.
I often buy cookbooks with the good intention of actually cooking from them but most of them usually end up as perusing/ogling material. This book looks lovely as does the jam. Sorry about the cake since it sounded yummy!
Hi Lorraine..You recipe inspired me so I went bought 1 Kg of strawberries yesterday and will begin making this jam today. I’m keen to try this recipe as it is quite different from my usual recipe where the jam is cooked in the oven!..also very easy and delicioso!
Just love all the photos!
Susie Q
Ok, I have to share something with you, I like strawberries, when is the season I’m the first to buy and eat (with a glass of champagne…!!!), yours look so perfect, but I don’t like strawberry jam, it’s just that I like that berry but fresh, and not cooked, I don’t know why, it’s just that I don’t.
I like this version. I love the look of whole strawberries stil in tact.
I don’t know if I have the patience to make jam over 3 days. It does look luscious though. xoxo Mum
I can’t say I buy cookbooks for the photos but many happy moments have been spent drooling over the pictures in my chocolate cookbooks
I have found that more liquid jams can be good on toast with a bit of cream cheese which stops it soaking into the bread so much – would love to do this with the jam – once tried a strawberry jam recipe with agar agar – it made a horrible jelly that makes me appreciate a bit of liquid in a jam
i am absolutely loving this influx of strawberries at the moment.. what a great way to take advantage of it! i am also a huuge sucker for all cookbooks.. no brand in particular, i pretty much like everything
hehe
whoa it looks delicious!
i love the texture of cooked strawberries. this is some stellar jam, lorraine–it’s lovely in every way!
Looks yummy!
How interesting, I didn’t think that one could make jam without pectin. Recently started making homemade jam and am hooked – will have to try this recipe out!
OMG …this jam turned out just peeerfect!!
I made two batches, one with vanilla bean and the next without. That is a total of 4 Kg of jam for approx $20! It is a beautiful transparent red colour with large strawberry pieces throughout. Consistency is slightly on the runny syrup side. I have given a number of jars away to family and friends…I can see already this is one fav. recipe I will keep on making it is toooosimple for words!
Susie Q
Hi Susie Q-I’m so glad that you liked it. Yes it is a bit runny but I keep it for pancakes and crepes and we all adore it. Have made quite a few batches now with all of the lovely strawberries in season
Everyone should make this jam the recipe is so simple and yet amazing taste. This second batch I am making with added rhubab as I was given some and also picked strawberries from directly from strawberry farm in Red Hill. I hoe it will be as good as my first batch. Thank you NQN love your site made the macadamia and fruit slice last week and that was delish.
HI NQN
I have just finished making this recipe… third day and the jam is in the jars…. why do you think this process is worthwhile… i wonder if it enhances the flavour of the fruit as one is cooking it gently instead of boiling the life out of it. I put in vanilla extract, didn’t have the pods, and i feel the vanilla was a bit strong, my fault… but a lovely jam nonetheless.
I would like to know the trick for getting the maximum flavour out of the fruit, e.g, i made apricot jam recently and the apricot flavour was barely there… i wonder if i can blame the fruit and not my cooking.
Hi Jen- for me,i like that the fruit is cooked gently and that it retains the plump fruit texture. I live seeing fruit in jam so that’s why I like it. I think starting with really lovely, ripe fruit helps too
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