Apricot jam

I thought there was some big secret behind jam. That it took days of preparation and then hours of cooking and required loads of sugar. Well, I was right about the sugar bit, in fact I was rather shocked to discover how much sugar goes into jam. The cooking bit however, I was wrong about. It took only a couple of hours from start to finish to knock up four jars of the stuff and now that I know how easy it is, I feel like I can't stop myself now.

I already tried out strawberry jam last week. Laughing, I put my half-price, half-eaten punnet of strawberries into the saucepan expecting to get two teaspoons worth of jam at the end of it:

"There's no way I'll make enough jam to make this experiment worthwhile. Aren't there like a million strawberries in a jar of jam? I'm sure I've read that on the label before!"


But no, I was rather pleasantly surprised to find a healthy sized jar-portion sitting in the bottom of the saucepan after my experiment. Which is why I've now moved onto apricots.

Ingredients
1.5kg apricots (after stoning)
1.5kg white granulated sugar
1 lemon
Approx. 10 almonds from inside the apricot stones

This will give you enough for four medium sized jars however you can make however much you want based on how ever many apricots you have. Basically, once you've taken the stones out, weigh the apricots and this will give you the weight of sugar you will need.

Half the apricots and place in the biggest saucepan you have with the sugar and juice from one lemon. Boil for about 30 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. In the meantime, you can get on with the almonds. That is, if you choose to put them in, as I only actually put them in one of my jars.

Crack open about ten of the stones to get the kernels and then blanch them for 2 minutes in boiling water. Skin them, halve them and place on a paper towel to dry out until you need them.

Now you're meant to do the Wrinkle Test on the jam which is now my most favourite test in the world! (And I reckon I passed it with flying colours). It involves eating warm spoonfuls of jam that have been spread on the surface of a chilled plate. If the jam wrinkles when you tilt the plate after a couple of seconds, then it's set and you can take it off the heat. If not, then let it boil for a few more minutes. You should really chill your plate in the freezer before hand but I did mine under the cold tap for a few minutes which is probably a bit of a waste of water and hence not very good for your Water Footprint - that's like your Carbon Footprint only muddier. Once it has been taken off the heat, Delia suggests dispersing the scum collected on the surface with a knob of butter but I found it easier to skim it off and disperse it in my tummy :)

After eating the scummy jam, leave it to cool for half an hour and then divide into sterilized jars. Sterilized jars, just to remind you, are jars that have been washed in warm, soapy water and then dried in the oven on a medium heat for about 30 minutes.

Apparently you should wait a few months to let the jam mature. If you're concerned that you won't have the willpower to go through with this, then I recommend getting your mum to come around and hide them. Just don't get your senile grandmother to do it or in a couple of months time, she would've forgotten where she'd put them.