Easy Strawberry Jam Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10-15 minutes
Makes: 4x400g/14oz jars
Ingredients Needed
- 1kg/2.2lbs strawberries, washed and hulled
- 750g/1.6lbs white sugar
- 60ml/2flozs lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or paste
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 PREP - Place a metal plate in the freezer (to test jam doneness) and place your jars and lid in a 180C/350F oven for 15 minutes to sterilise. Keep the jam jars in the oven so that they're hot.
Step 2 MASH - While the jars are sterilising, place the strawberries in a large 5 litre/5.3quart pot. Mash strawberries well with a potato masher (you can also pulse in a food processor but I like some texture to my jam). Add sugar, lemon juice and vanilla and bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes with the lid off.
Step 3 BOIL - Stir in cream of tartar and increase heat and allow to rapidly boil for 4-5 minutes. The amount of time depends on how fast the jam is boiling so take it off the heat when it has the texture that you want. Skim off the scum with a slotted spoon. Test the jam for doneness by taking half a teaspoon of the liquid and drawing a line with it on the frozen metal plate. If the liquid holds and does not merge back together, your jam is ready. If not, cook rapidly for two or three minutes more.
Step 4 JAR - By now the jars and lids should be done and take them out of the oven. With a ladle spoon the hot jam in the hot jars leaving around half an inch gap at the top (jars and jam must be hot to avoid the glass cracking from thermal shock). Wearing oven gloves, screw the lids on tight. I like to place the jars upside down to create a seal.
Step 5 CAN - To preserve the jarsthese so that they can safely be kept at room temperature, place them in a large pot of water, fully immersed. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely and remove jars. The jam should now keep on the shelf for 1 year in a cool, dark place.
Substitution notes:
White sugar can be subbed for caster or superfine sugar. You can also make jam with brown sugar but this will produce a more molasses flavour and darker colour to your jam.
Vanilla extract, essence or paste can be subbed with a scraped vanilla bean pod.
Personal Note
We always have lots of fruit in the house but for this strawberry jam I had to tell Mr NQN to keep his hands off it. He loves fruit and juices and will happily subsist on both entirely if he is allowed to.
We were also having Mr NQN's family over and he just bought two bottles of nice juice. When you find a good juice you look forward to drinking it, especially if you're Mr NQN who just loves the damn stuff.
Usually he'll happily share things with people but not the good juice. About 30 minutes before they arrived, I saw him rifling in the main fridge. He took out the two juices and popped them deep in the back of the second fridge while muttering something to himself.
"What are you doing it?" I asked him.
"I'm hiding the juice!" he said conspiratorially. He knows that his family will often just help themselves to whatever is in the fridge, especially the kids and he did not want his precious juice supply dwindled by these juice gobblers.
And it's true if you offer any Elliott some of your drink your glass will be returned to you empty. At first, I thought this was just Mr NQN but then his sister's fiancé Ben mentioned that Araluen also downs his drinks as if they had just run a marathon and needed rapid hydration.
"Okay, then hide the strawberries too!" I said because jam needed to be made and I could see them also helping themselves to the 4 boxes of strawberries.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever hide food from guests? What is your favourite jam flavour?