Well, I decided last year that I wanted to make chutneys and jams and the release of Val's book prompted me in the right direction. Had a look through and saw a few recipes I wanted to make. Asked on here for advice regarding equipment and my jam making pan from Lakeland arrived today.
Out of coincidence, someone posted some plums on freecycle. I was lucky to be chosen for them and decided that plum jam would be the first jam for me to make.
Looked at the recipe in the book, need 1.8kg. Ok. Start destoning the plums. Thinking that this is going quite well, got 100g already and have loads of plums left over. Ah, realise that 100g is not over half way to 1800g and that I am going to be there for a long time destoning the plums!
Starting to get near the end of my plum supply and am no where near the 1800g required so decide to make a half batch to try it out. Probably for the best, have never done this before.
Add water, begin to simmer fruit. Smells delicious, reminds me of the crumbles my mum used to make. Test for pectin (remembered the spirit from the chemist earlier), oh dear, no where near ready. Keep simmering. Decide to measure out the sugar and, OH YES, now I remember, I used half the plums but all the water! That is probably why the pectin test didn't work for the plums although they shouldn't need any added to it according to the book.
OK, drain some of the water, hope this helps, fingers crossed.
Simmer. Test for pectin. Repeat 7 times until half the bottle of spirits has gone and I am wondering if jam is my thing!
Decide to go for it. Add the sugar, stir, jars are in the oven sterilising. Get the thermometer and leave to boil until I can see it reaching temp, stiring lots of course! Plate in the fridge, test for setting, doesn't work. Try again x 2 - then we get there.
Funnel in jar, put in jam mixture but it is moving very slowly through the funnel. Well, actually, not at all. Get a skewer and unblock the funnel. Oh dear, now the jam is pouring through the funnel and the jar is filling, oops, jam on outside of jar too!
But. I get there. And do you know what, I am so so proud of myself for making jam tonight. Had a little taste, as did the kids, and it is delicious. Thank you so much to Val and everyone on this site who makes me think that I can do these things even when I have never done anything like it before. Honestly, it is completely new and I am so grateful to this site and its members for motivating me to do more than buy a jar of jam from the supermarket.
Sadly, I have taken a picture of the jam jars!