This site has been created to help everyone who loves to or wants to make fruit jams.
It has been created because when I started jam making I found that finding the information was difficult and bitty. Also many sites assumed a knowledge I just didn’t have. I wanted to help people by bringing all this knowledge into one place as much as possible or at least direct people to things that are needed.
Each step forward threw up new questions that I then had to put into the search engine to find. This then created new questions so I had to repeat the process. This was time consuming and slow.
Maybe you know some or more than I did and do not need that knowledge and can just enjoy the other aspects of the site. However I am sure there are some of you out there that are like me.
When I started I knew nothing. I simply had some blackcurrants that were so sour they could not go onto my cereal as planned so I had to find alternatives.
When I say some I mean 14lbs of them!
So I decided to make jam. I had never made jam and I knew nothing about it.
So I searched a recipe. There were surprisingly few for blackcurrants.
It gave instructions. The amount of fruit and then mentioned Pectin. What?
What was that? I had heard of it and taken no notice so didn’t know how it affected jam making.
Pectin went in the search. So now I knew about it but not how it would work on my currants. Were they high or low? Would they need more?
Finally it said seal the jar. What? How? No one had said anything about any jar sealing.
I had seen my mum make jam when I was little and I was certain that no sealing was involved. The jars were washed, filled with jam and then a sheet of greaseproof paper was placed on it followed by the lid.
If the jam went funny on top it was scrapped off and the jam used.
(actually I later found out mum did heat the jars)
So this was the extent of my knowledge – Zero!
After a lot of research and four attempts I finally got some jam that had set. Knowing that blackcurrants should have set easily this meant a lot of mistakes were being made.
My sister meantime had some fruit that was meant to be difficult to set and it set hard.
More conversation and more learning.
So this site aims to save others that trouble by gathering together the information needed to learn to make great jam, jellies, fruit butters and marmalade.
It also aims to bring together some great recipes and make a community for sharing ideas, challenges and just have fun.