This year has been a lot more of doing experiments in the kitchen especially with stuff that came from the own garden. The reality from the garden is that it always comes in bulk when the time is right and you have to do something with it to preserve the fruits and veggies.
Last summer I made some fantastic jam from the blackberries from the garden. It was the first time I did this and actually I was kind of proud of myself for the way that it had turned out.
Sweet but not too sweet, thick but not too thick and actually it was really easy to do.
Apart from making jam I also stocked a lot of blackberries in the freezer because they are also awesome for in smoothies and in yoghurt or those kinds of thing. Just take a couple of them out of there and you are set to go.
Now a couple of months later I decided it was time to finish the left overs of all the blackberries from the freezer because there was also some ice forming on it. It was time to make some new jam on there on a lazy Sunday.
So I went through the same process of making the jam as the previous time. I cooked out an old jar in boiling water to sterilize the jar for about 10 minutes and let it rest on a towel after.
I tossed in the frozen blackberries in the pan and let them boil until it was all falling into pieces. This didn't take long at all, not even a minute or 10 until it was all liquified.
After that it needed a good straining session to get out all of the seeds. You don't have to do this and then you will have more of a bulke jam. But I like the smooth version so I strained it.
Only when that was done, that is when I tossed in the sugar.
Now sugar has two effects in all of this. It makes the jam nice and sweet but also it makes sure that the jam thickens in. I don't like going 1 on 1 with sugar and liquid, because that is way too much.
There is also an option to put in some 'lectines' by adding a squeeze of lemon juice that will also start the process of thickening. And that is what I did. So less sugar, a bit of lemon juice. Put it in the jar and wait till it cools off right?
So I am not entirely sure what happened in the process, but the jam did not start to thicken in. It was totally liquid in there still! Luckily there is google and that said wait for 3 days.
3 days later it was still liquid. Crap, I was bummed! Again back to the friends of google and they said reheat and add more sugar. Especially since I had no idea exactly how much sugar I added this was kind of a challenge.
But with the reheating and adding the sugar I did the 'stickyness' test with letting some warm jam rest on a cold spoon and see if it starts to run, and it looked good!
So I let it cool off again and had high hopes. But it didn't start to thicken again so I got worried. Still it would be nice to stir through yoghurt as a liquid but this was not at all suitable as a jam.
3 days later, it turned out perfectly thick! Patience and adjustmust was key!. Hello jam 2.0!!
