Hand picked, Homemade Jam

Recipe: Hand picked, Homemade Jam 

My all time favourite Summer time activity to do when I'm back in Victoria over Christmas break visiting the family, is berry picking at High Grove Berry Farm in Stanley. They have an extraodinary farm, with a vast assortment of berries, even a lavender bush, and cherry trees.

And I'm lucky enough to have Apricot and different fruit trees at my parents place.

An absolute favourite berry of mine, would have to be Bramble-berry. In order to get it at its very best, pick it at a very dark black-purple colour. Which has a beautiful sweet taste to it, leaving your taste buds begging for more.  

 Ingredients  

- 1.5 - 2.0 Kg, Berries of your choice (for this recipe I did a mix of Bramble-berry and Raspberry)  

- 500g of White sugar

- 50g of Jamsetta 

- And another 250g of white sugar to add with Jamsetta

- Four 500L Jam jars

Step one 

Boil Berries with 500g of sugar in pot without lid, continually stirring for approx. 45min - 1hr until berries and sugar are a sugary puree. 

Jam Jars are to be warmed in oven at 100 degrees as hot jam cannot be poured into cold jars.

Note: When using Apricots, they will need to be blended to make it easier to boil. 

Step two 

Combine 250g of sugar with 50g of Jamsetta and add to boiled berries. Continue to boil for another 10-15 min then turn stove off.

Step three

Pour jam into jars with a ladle and and cover jar with a tea towel around it so jam doesn't get on outside of jar. Once you have finished this wrap all jars in a tea towel and leave overnight to cool naturally to form a crust (a thin crust layer on top of jam). Next day clean up the top of the jar so excess jam doesn't hinder opening the lid.

Store in pantry. Once the crust has been broken store in a fridge.

And last but not least, enjoy a delicious jam on toast. 

Photo credit: Scanlan Bradley  (Instagram https://www.instagram.com/scanlan_bradley/ )