Making Jam and Jelly

Food/Drink/Culinaria
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For years now, because of problems with getting seeds stuck in my gums (isn’t old age great?) I have been making jellies rather than jam even though it takes a lot more fruit. In some ways it’s easier too as you soften the fruit, can leave it filtering overnight then do the jelly part quite quickly the following day.

My most successful jellies are redcurrant (for use with lamb or duck mainly) and blackberry and apple (less intense flavour than just blackberry)

However, this week I thought I’d try making a jam/jelly with whitecurrants since we had a glut. I found a recipe for seedless jam so gave it a go. The results are surprisingly good as I thought it might be a bit tasteless. However, I went with the jelly method of calculating how much sugar to use as the jam version would have been far too sweet.

What do other people do ? Jams or jellies?

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Jam from the shop I’m afraid (I do make onion and mango chutneys though)

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I don’t think your garden has much fruit in it anyway, if I remember rightly? We get a glut of blueberries as well and, since I’ve not managed a jam that tastes of anything, I tend to make a variant of Creme de Cassis with it. Much more your cup of tea I would have thought :rofl:

4

I’m hoping to make fig jam. Which would not suit you at all!

But only planted the trees this year, so plenty of time to collect jars.

5

We do eat figs (raw) but our tree took a while to fruit. If you are using French-style jam jars, I did manage to find a supplier here of replacement lids that were cheaper than the hugely expensive LeParfait ones. It turned out to be a lot cheaper to buy a batch of jars+lids when they were on offer at the agricultural merchants than buy the tiny packs of authentic lids they also sold. :roll_eyes:

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6

I make some fruit jams and 3-fruit (oranges/lemons/grapefruit) marmalade with thick sliced rind like Frank Coopers Vintage Marmalade - and always use half the amount of sugar that’s in the recipe.
When I do buy jams, it is usually the Bonne Maman ‘confiture intense’ brand, either blackcurrant and cherry.

The only jelly I like is mint jelly.

And I’m reminded that when I was a young girl, my mum would only buy seedless raspberry jam because she said the pips got under her (false teeth) plate and my sister had diverticulitis and had to avoid seeds !

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7

Interestingly, the seedless whitecurrant jam I made set just like a jelly does but it wasn’t clear like a jelly. I wonder what determines the texture… :thinking:

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I make raspberry jam, but first bring the berries to a boil, then sieve the pips out and use the resulting pulp to make the jam…
as for figs - confit fig with balsamic vinegar and chilies turned out to be a crowd pleaser. It works equally well with cheese and pate as it does instead of plain fig jam…

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9

Your raspberry method is roughly what I did with the whitecurrants. I’ve never tried fig jam as we don’t seem to get enough figs ripening at the same time!

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I have one purple fig tree. And its a hit and miss harvest. Last year - nada. Year before 1-2 kilos every few days. Have jam/confit to last into next year (makes great presents) and this year looks like another glut.
Neighbours and friends will be happy recipients of surplus.

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