whilst walking home from work last week, a nice old lady asked me if I wanted to take some damsons from her tree (there appears to be a bumper crop around here this year), so I returned with a bag and spent a lovely sunny evening picking fruit.
It took me another few days to actually work out what to DO with them (other than eat them all). I wanted to make jam, but despite my love of baking, I've never actually made any - it's something my nan has always done incredibly well and always seemed a bit too intricate and messy for someone as haphazard as me.
All the recipes I found said I needed preserving sugar, jam pans, thermometers and funnels. But it turns out it doesn't have to be so professional, just chuck it all in a pan and voila... I made my very first batch of jam made with damsons I picked and the odd left over plum. I've called it 'Damsons in Distress' (I bought labels so I had to call it something!) The recipe is below - and if I can make it, anyone can...
Damson and plum jam recipe
(makes 6 jars)
Ingredients:
1kg of damsons and/or plums (I used about 2:1 ratio)
1kg of sugar
1/2 lemon
knob of butter
1/2 bottle of Certo apple pectin
(I found this in the homebaking bit of my local supermarket)
Materials:
Large bowl
Large pan
6 glass jars
Wax paper discs
Labels (optional)
Preparation:
1. Sterilise your jars by washing them in hot soapy water, rinsing them in hot clean water and then place them upside down in a pre-heated oven (140 C) for 30 minutes. Get them out when you're ready to pour the jam into them.
Method:
1. Remove seeds and stalk from the fruit and chop roughly into pieces (keep it quite chunky if you're a) lazy and b) like bits in your jam)
2. Place fruit into a large bowl and cover with the sugar - stir in until all the fruit has coated (some recipes tell you to leave it in the fridge overnight but, being impatient, I left it a few hours and it seemed to work out fine)
3. Place the fruit and sugar mixture into a large pan - if you don't have pan big enough for all the mixture (bearing in mind you still need to add more liquid), you can make it in batches.
4. Heat the fruit and sugar mixture and add lemon juice.
5. If your mixture starts to foam, add a knob of butter.
6. Bring the mixture up to the boil rapidly and keep on a rolling boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring occassionally.
7. Remove from the heat and stir in the pectin (remember, if you're making this in batches to adjust the amount of pectin accordingly - or use more pectin for a hard set, jelly-like jam)
8. Leave to cool. If you put it into the jars whilst hot, all the fruit will sink to the bottom of the jar.
9. Remove your jars from the oven (using oven gloves, obviously) and leave to cool for a minute, or until touchable. Make sure you don't touch the inside of the jar. Pour your jam in to the jars (this is where a funnel comes in useful if you have one, but you can live without one), place the wax paper circle on top and quickly cover with the lid of the jar.
If you want to check whether your jam will set before putting it into jars, place a plate in the freezer a couple of hours before making the jam. Remove from the freezer when your jam is hot (and the pectin added) and drip a bit onto the cold plate. If it wrinkles up a bit or becomes tacky to touch, this means it will set. If it runs around the plate, you may need to return it to the heat for another couple of minutes before repeating the test.
Enjoy!
