00:00Hello and so today we're just going to be making, or trying to make, first attempt at
00:20some jam.
00:21I found this in the shop, this jam sugar, it's got pectin on it as well which is a natural
00:27thing, it comes from fruit, it creates that jelly-like consistency.
00:31These strawberries I've been picking over the past couple of days, I'll just go in now
00:37and see if there's any more.
00:38I've just picked these, they're now off the gooseberry bush, so I'll have to tap and peel
00:42them and throw them in, and I'm just going to boil it all together, and I don't have
00:47a measuring thing or anything, just in a pan with a wee bit of water.
00:52I've got two strawberry bushes and pots here, now this one hasn't given me very many this
01:00year, these are strawberries that were bought in shops last year and I'm getting ones from
01:08seed as well, alpine strawberries which are a smaller strawberry variety.
01:13This is a sunflower one, it's just a really, a lot of fruit this summer, much more than
01:20I did in this first year, a couple more, I think I've raided enough this week, but it
01:33just keeps going, it's been going for about a month, so that's good.
01:38Here's another one, and the strawberries, they're worth, oh that one's been eaten by
01:44something so we'll leave that there for whatever was feasting on it, we have another go, and
01:50strawberries don't take very long from when they flower, when the white flower comes,
01:55the fruit come out, so we're keeping an eye on them every day, when they start flowering,
02:00yeah we've missed a lot from this one, I never really looked at this one, but a lot of them
02:06have blossomed, and obviously with a strawberry that's the seeds on the outside, I've seen
02:15some people taking the skin, just skinning the strawberry and planting it in the ground,
02:25or in a bit of compost, and getting little strawberry plants from that, I've just had
02:32them in the mix, should have washed them first, so they're over ripe, but the smell is lovely,
02:45so we'll get them on the way, and hopefully, so we'll get the, so I've just done here,
02:57I have a wee small bit of water, that's just to help the fruit dissolve, and the sugar
03:02dissolve, I'll just need a small knife, and then we'll get going, so I'll be chopping
03:14up the gooseberries, and then just taking the ends off the strawberries, and throwing
03:23them all in there, just as they are, looks ok, I'll be back in a second, so we have the
03:30strawberries in there now, got a wastage here, we'll just throw that back in the soil, and
03:37then the gooseberries, what I tend to do is just tap and peel them with my fingers, because
03:45that way you don't get much wastage, and the berries don't go everywhere, and you know
03:52when a gooseberry is ripe, as I'll just show you here, you can see it's translucent, so
04:01here we have it, and this is the strawberries, some of the gooseberries, I have a lot more
04:07gooseberries here, I can add some more, or else try a second batch with just gooseberries,
04:11and I've added an equal ratio of, or well, roughly an equal ratio, it says a kilo of
04:18fruit to a kilo of this special sugar with pectin already added to it, and as I said
04:27pectin is the naturally occurring thing in the fruit that would create that gel like
04:36effect you get with jam, and sort of preserves and things, so it really smells amazing, you
04:45can smell the strawberries, gooseberries are quite a mild fruit, they're lovely actually,
04:50they're a bit like lemon, or sorry not like lemon, like melon, or blueberry, they're that
04:56kind of level of mild, but a bit sweeter than both of those, and the strawberries just,
05:05such a difference with fresh strawberries than there is the ones that maybe travelled
05:09a few, two or three different countries to get here, that's what the overwhelming smell
05:16is there, is the strawberries, I'm just going to let that boil in summer now for a while,
05:22and see what it turns out, I've kept these old coffee jars here, just rinse them out
05:30and let them sit out for a while, and I'll fill them up then once this cools, on the
05:37first time I'm making jam, and I might smash up the fruit a bit too because it's still
05:50very much holding its shape there, and I don't really want it to, I don't want it to break
05:55down a bit, so we'll have a go with that now. For jelly, which I didn't realise you could
06:02make jelly from this as well, you just boil it vigorously for one minute, and then let
06:06it simmer, and for jam, boil vigorously for four minutes, and then do the same, I thought
06:14jam would be a lot more of a hassle to create, but seemingly not, so it's coming along nicely
06:22now there, it's starting to thicken already, the pectin in the sugar and the pectin in
06:27the fruit combine in there, you can actually feel it, there's a lot of water released,
06:33obviously berries have a lot of liquid in them, and then I put a little bit of extra
06:39water just to help them break down, that'll boil off now, and then in the cooling as well
06:46you'll find it setting, that's about two minutes now, the vigor has boiled, and we'll just
06:55keep stirring it while you're doing that, which I wasn't doing until now.
07:10So as you probably saw there isn't very much fruit in there, but you don't seem to need
07:14a lot, I don't know how much jam we'll get out of this, but maybe enough for one little
07:19jar or half a jar or something like that, you just need to try your own jam, and fruit
07:24you've grown yourself, gooseberries, there's no real effort involved with gooseberries,
07:33you can buy a slip cheaply enough, or take a slip from a cutting, from a neighbour's
07:39cutting or a relative's cutting, and they grow so easily in our climate, and you get
07:47an abundance of fruit often, just one thing I would say is that they're very very thorny
07:52when you're picking the fruit, so you might want to get yourself a pair of gloves, I say
07:58this all the time and then don't use them, and I have gloves, they have really sharp
08:08thorns, and that's about four minutes in, roughly, everything's a bit rough, I haven't
08:17measured anything yet, but we'll see how it turns out, and that is that, so I'm just going
08:28to let that sit now, I've the heat off on it, and it's boiling hot there as you can
08:33see, so just let it cool down, and then put it into the wee jar, once it's cool, and try
08:42it out, so as you can see here, I've bounced it up, and I've managed to get about half
08:49a jar, if I'd used all the gooseberries, I'd probably get a full jar, but I'm just going
08:55to use the last wee bit on toast here, I'll get a knife and sort that properly, I don't
09:07want to, but, and you can also use this, have some vegan vanilla, salted vanilla ice cream
09:19here, so I'll just pour the wee bit over like a sauce, and then that's it on toast, and
09:24I'll just show you the consistency of it, it's a wee bit runnier, more runny than normal
09:31jam, that you would buy in a shop, but it's, in terms of the taste, there's no comparison,
09:39it's just far more tastier, and there's no preservatives or anything in this, so it won't
09:46last as long, but it is much nicer, definitely, and it's very very easy to do, I'm surprised
09:52how easy it was to do actually, but, trips and nighting.
10:06That's lovely, eh?
10:16Thanks for watching!
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