This summer has been unusual one weather-wise but the persistent showers and odd warm sunny spell have resulted in a bumper harvest when it comes to juicy summer fruits, in my garden at least. So much so that I’ve ended up with too many berries, and rather than let them go to rot, I thought I’d try my hand at making a jam preserve from some of the leftover strawberries and gooseberries.
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LifestyleTranscript
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!