Gooseberry Jam

New technology sometimes sucks -  just saying that if you get a new coil top stove, the safety burners don't allow you to keep something boiling easily.  It's a pretty stove,  but inefficient and causes emergency burner changes when trying to heat a canning kettle for heat processing yummy jam.

I have to make room in the freezer so I can shift the freezer contents of the fridge into said freezer next week, and then empty it enough to eventually defrost it.   I have gooseberries from last year and the year before that I've been wanting to use for jam.  I didn't really have enough  any one year because they are so tiny.    It turned out there was also an old packet, which was freezer burnt, so it went to the compost bin.

the few red gooseberries turned the jam red!

But I had over 1500 g of berries, maybe 1700g.   I sorted out the best 1000g and put them in a pot.  The best producing bush is very old.  It has hard green berries which never ripen because the birds get them first, or they get some sort of bug or blistering as they get softer.   So I harvest the tiny green berries unripe, top and tail them and if I'm not using them immediately, toss them in the freezer.   I have a newer bush, but it has just started bearing fruit.  It gave me about 15 lovely deep red berries last year, which I'd tossed in with last year's harvest.

I was using an 1832 recipe from Cooks Own Book, which is a delightful encyclopedia style cookery book.  It's easy to read and find recipes.   It calls for only half the weight of berries in sugar or a ratio of 1 part sugar to 2 parts gooseberries.   Other period recipes call for 3/4 lb of sugar to each 1lb of berries to as much as a 1:1 ratio of sugar to berries.  I opted for  using 750g of sugar to my 1kg of berries, because they were still pretty tart.

The because the berries were frozen, there were enough ice crystals to keep them from burning as they thawed and started to cook.   I turned the burner off after they started to thicken up.  Gooseberries have a lot of pectin in them, and I still hadn't added the sugar.   After the boiling stopped, I added the sugar in small amounts, stirring it in to dissolve between additions.  This helps keep the sugar from sticking and burning.   Then after we finally got the hot water bath to boil - we had to change a burner out on the new stove -   I brought the jam back up to a boil and boiled it until it started to thicken once again and a dollop on a cold plate showed it was done.   

I put the jam into hot jars, added lids and tossed them in the canner.  Once the water came back to a boil, I let it boil for  10 minutes.  Out came these beautiful little jars of jam.   Gooseberries are indeed an old fashioned flavour, and it does take a lot of extra work to process the berries at first, but oh, it's lovely, lovely jam.   What is also nice is that those few red berries dissolved giving the jam a lovely red colour.

Recipe -  Gooseberry Jam

1 kg gooseberries

750 g sugar

1 1/2 tbsn lemon juice

1/4 c water if berries are fresh or dry frozen.

Top and tail the gooseberries, removing the stem and flower ends from each berry.

Put in a large heavy bottomed pot with water if necessary and the lemon juice.    The lemon juice is a modern precaution to make sure the jam is acidic enough to prevent bacteria from growing or so I've been told.

Cook the berries up on medium heat, stirring periodically until the berries start to get soft.  Take the pot off the heat and when it is slightly cooled, add the sugar in several additions, stirring in between until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Put the jam back on the heat and bring to a boil.  Boil about 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pot, so that the jam doesn't scorch.    Test the jam on a cold plate to see if it is of a jam-like consistency, holds it's shape when you run your finger through the dollop etc.   With a funnel, pour the jam (I use a stainless ladle) into prepared (clean and hot) jars.   Wipe the rims of the jars to remove any spills and traces of jam.  Put new lids and clean rings on the jars.    Put into a hot water bath canner which has reached boiling.   Bring the water back to a boil and then start timing.  10 minutes for 250 ml jars 15 minutes for 500 ml jars.   Remove jars and let them sit over night without moving them.  Any jars which don't seal properly, with an indent or the lid concave and secure, should be stored in the fridge and used within a few weeks.

Jam Time

One of the largest apricots in the container

I made both Peach and Apricot jam last week.  Apricots aren't easy to find in this area for some reason, and this year has been even more difficult.  People are saying they haven't seen any.   I was lucky when my son found some and presented me with a plastic clam shell container full of these teeny, tiny apricots.   I think in other years, they wouldn't even qualify for seconds they were so tiny.  In most of them, there was more pit than fruit!

foam shows jam is not ready

I sliced them in half, took out the pits and gave them a quick buzz through the food processor, in hopes that I had enough for a decent batch of jam.   I needed 4-5 cups of fruit and I had barely 2 1/2 cups.  I popped them in the freezer and checked the shops the next time out.  I would have been happy with a few imported apricots to add.  But not a single apricot, local or imported was to be found.  

foam subsiding and jam is clear

I used them in a 19th c jam recipe which calls for equal weights of sugar and fruit.  It made a spectacular jam, albeit a very small amount.   I was hoping to have enough for Christmas presents, but all I have is a personal stash.  Better that than no apricot jam at all though.

Jam with pectin has a pretty exact process to follow and if you do it with the correct timing, and quantities, you have jam!    Making it without pectin has a bit more of a margin for error.  It's easy to over cook it and get a solid, unspreadable  mass in your jar.   Been there, done that, couldn't eat the jam :)

Apricot Jam

You start off heating the sugar and fruit.  The sugar draws out the fruit juices, very quickly making a liquid which then easily comes to a boil.   It gets quite foamy and with a small amount like this, the pectin starts to do it's gelling thing almost right away.   Once it starts to turn clear and the foam subsides, you're almost there.
I keep a glass plate in the freezer.  I pull it out when I think the jam is close.  I put a dollop of jam on it and give it a second to cool.  I run my finger through it to divide the dollop in two.  If the jam doesn't run back together, then it's ready to go.

I ladle the jam into hot jars, wipe the rims, put on new lids and rims and pop the jars into a hot water canning bath.  Once it comes back to a boil, I process for 10 minutes.  If the jars were filled correctly and I get the rims completely clean, I get to hear those lovely little pings as the jars seal.   I do like that sound.

Peach jam which is sunnier and brighter than photo shows

A simple rug and jam -

The loom is dressed and I've started weaving.  I've got it set up for 2 rugs.   I only put 2 on because I've found that with any more, I have to cut the first 2 off and then retie the warp.  It's not an awful chore, but I know that the last rug might take a while if I put on too many at a time.  I need to make a house warming gift, so letting a project languish at this time, is not a good thing.   I know with only 2 rugs, they will get done in a timely fashion.    I purchased 10 cones of 4/8 cotton, in natural a couple of years ago, meaning to make guitar straps.   I was going to dye all the colours I needed, only it turned out that a) dyeing all the string for the colours I needed turned out to be a lot more work than I wanted for this project and b) the 4/8 inkle woven straps were just a bit thinner than I expected.  While I knew they were strong enough, they bend and fold a bit more easily than I'd like.  I'm using one on my open back banjo and it's serviceable and pretty, but a bit fiddly sometimes.

Anyway, with all that natural 4/8, I had to dye the warp stripe.   It is a dark teal blue.    The blue warp shrank a bit in the dyeing process, which made for an interesting time dressing the loom.   The weft is a sheet that my daughter gave me when she cleaned out her closets.   It was a fitted sheet, so a little less fabric, but there are also 2 pillow cases, if I need them. I like the way the dark and light warp stripes are so effective when woven up.    I had been looking for a jersey sheet.   Jersey t-shirts and sheet make awesome rugs, but I didn't think I had enough of any one colour and I wasn't sure that weft stripes, along with the warp stripes would be effective in this case.

blackberries were purple in real life, not bright red.

 I made some seedless blackberry jam.  I had a whole set of photos to show the process and I was going to do a blog post on making it.   However I think I messed up when I transferred the photos to the computer and then since they were on my phone, I deleted them.   Yay me!

after much fiddling with colour, I left them red .

After heating up the blackberries, I ran them through a strainer to remove the seeds.   Blackberries have a lot of seeds and mine are semi feral, so pretty seedy in comparison to pulp for some of them at least.   I much prefer the seedless jam, which requires pushing them through a strainer of some kind.  I wish I had a food mill of some sort, but I don't, and I couldn't remember what I did the last time I made it.  I first tried a plastic colander, which let many of the seeds through, requiring me to re-strain the batch.  Then I tried a wire mesh strainer, which was too fine.   The next one I tried has a tiny hole in it, that got much bigger before I noticed it, requiring me to re-strain the whole batch to get all the seeds out, again.   Finally I got a strainer which worked adequately and it took a lot of effort, pushing the berries through.  The aim is to get the juice and the pulp through the strainer but not the seeds.   You don't want a clear jelly, but a jam, without the seeds which get caught in your teeth.

I addedd lemon juice and sugar.  I used pectin because I didn't want to spend a lot of time in front of the stove.  When it looked right, I popped it into hot jars, put new lids (always new lids) and finger tightened the rings down.  Then they go into the hot water bath canner for 10 minutes, once it starts to boil again.   I set a timer, so I have an audible reminder to take the jars out of the canner.   I lift them out of the water bath, and set the jars on the counter to cool.    I know every one who cans jars of anything, waits and listens for the pings that say the vaccuum seal is secure and all is good  with this batch.   They all pinged.   I opened a jar, as there wasn't any left for tasting, after the jars were filled.  It's good - not overly sweet and very blackberryish.   Yum..

I'm still finding spatters of blackberry pulp around the kitchen, in places it shouldn't be; the stove backsplash, counters, cupboard doors.  It was a messy but delicious job.    I've made apricot and blackberry jam.   I was trying to decide between plum or cherry for my final batch of the year.  Both of those rank very high for flavour.  I'd better decide soon as the blue plums won't be available for much longer.