jams & preserves – Food That We Make

Homemade stock mix (bouillon)

hannahnicklin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:20:38 +0000

So, like most people who do a lot of homemade cooking, I use an awful amount of stock. Risotto, curries, couscous, that kind of thing, I’m basically buying a thing of stock cubes every supermarket visit. Not that it’s too expensive for me, but I spotted this recipe in my new River Cottage Preserves book, and really liked the idea of just making my own. This made enough for one large and 3 smaller jars of the stuff, it keeps in a dark cool place for up to 6 months (it’s preserved by the fucktonne of salt that you put in) and it 2 tsp stirs into 500ml of hot water to make ace veggie stock! Refrigerate open jars, and bob’s your uncle! (Funfact: I do actually have an uncle bob).

Prep Time: 30-40 min (mainly because I had to blend in batches because I don’t have a Grown Up Blender| Servings: makes 3 x 340g jars

Ingredients: you can add other good stock-y vegetables, most things, really, this is just the book recipe + a bit of celery.

Basically, chop everything into blendable sizes.

Blend it.

No really, it’s as simple as that. If you’re doing it in batches just add in a bit of everything, blend, decant into a big bowl, and repeat, then stir the final amount together before decanting. Et voila!

Strawberry Jam

hannahnicklin — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:18:49 +0000

Jam! More of it, my second ever attempt at jam and PROPER YUMMY. This is perfect for mixing in yoghurts, filling jam tarts and cakes with, or putting on hot cross buns. Here we go…

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: depends on how quickly it gets to setting point 30-60mins |Servings: 1.5kg approx

Ingredients: (there’s also ingredients for apple and blackberry jam pictured, which I cooked just before the strawberry one. Sure you can work out which fruit belongs where)

First off, prep the fruit, and squeeze the lemon juice (it should be about 150ml of lemon juice)

then mash 200g of the strawberries together with 200g of the granulated sugar

Warm this mix gently

And then add the rest of the strawberries, bring this mix gently to a simmer, stirring often.

Simmer for 5 minutes to allow the fruit to just start to soften, and then add the remaining sugar and lemon juice

Bring to a rapid boil, and pop a small plate in the freezer for testing the setting point, boil rapidly for 15 minutes, then test for setting point by putting a tsp on a plate, and running your finger across the top after a minute of it cooling, if it wrinkles, it’s ready to take off the boil! Keep on trying this until it’s ready. It took well longer than 15 minutes, for me.

Meanwhile, sterilise your jars by cleaning in very hot soapy water, and drying in a low heat oven.

When the jam is at setting point, allow to cool for a bit, then transfer to jars, top with wax circles (wax side down!), tightly screw on the lids, and label!

Yummy. Based on a Pam Corbin recipe from the River Cottage book of Preserves.

Blackberry and Apple Jam

hannahnicklin — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 13:00:20 +0000

One of my strongest memories of what ‘home’ is, it the heat of a kitchen, the sound of the Archers omnibus, and the smell of pastry baking and jam making. My mum’s responsible for all of my (what she calls) ‘survival skills’ cooking; the basic, good, hearty stuff you can do with ingredients that come straight off the land. Something about bringing kids up in the 80s, I think, she’s always showing me how to bake, grow, and preserve native things. So there was something of a ‘homecoming’ about making my very first jam of my own. My favourite dessert at the moment is soya natural yoghurt with a tsp of my mum’s jam stirred in, and when I ran out of that, I thought ‘why not make my own’. So here it is. My First Jam. Based on a recipe from

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour cooling | Servings: 1.5kg

Nutritional Info: Per tablespoon: 42kcals, no fat (no saturated), 0.1g protein, 11.2g carbs, 11.2g sugar, trace salt

Ingredients: (there’s also ingredients for strawberry jam pictured, which I cooked just after the blackberry and apple one. Sure you can work out which fruit belongs where)

Put the blackberries and apples into a large pan with the lemon juice and 100ml water. Place over a medium heat and simmer gently for 10-15 minutes, until tender and reduced. Basically they’ll suddenly be FULL OF JUICE around 8 minutes in, you have to wait for that to happen, and then let it reduce for 5-10.

Put a plate into the freezer to chill for later, this is how you’ll test whether or not it’s at setting point. Add the jam sugar to the pan and cook, stirring to dissolve. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Put a teaspoonful of jam onto a chilled saucer for 1 minute. Drag your finger lightly over the jam. If it wrinkles, it has reached setting point; if it doesn’t, boil for a couple more minutes, then turn off the heat and try again with another chilled saucer. Set aside to cool for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to its lowest setting. You now have to sterilise the jars and lids that you’re going to be using, clean and upturn them – lids off – in very hot soapy water.

Put in them in the oven for at least 15 minutes – on a heat which leaves the glass just ok to handle, pretty much the lowest setting works fine.

Stir the jam, when cool-ish (I only left it about half an hour and it was fine) then ladle into each jar, place a wax circle (wax side down) on top to help seal the jam from any stray bacteria, seal tightly, and label. Ready to eat when cool!