How to make Jam - by Mrs Jones to Be

Our wedding requires jam - so I thought I'd give it a go. Delia's recipes required stop clocks and thermometres. I am not from the Delia school of cookery (especially not if we're talking about her latest incarnation - frozen mash potato and tinned mince - I ask you - tsk). Anyway I love the woman and some of her recipes are delicious (lemon ricotta cheesecake, oven baked mushroom risotto, cajun salmon and black bean salsa to name but a few), but Mr Jones and I read her recipes with much mirth. "Preheat your grill to high and place the shelf exactly seven inches from the heat source, then cook your salmon for precisely six minutes.....". I like to cook a bit more organically - in the vein of Mr Oliver and Ms Lawson. So twas to Ms Lawson I turned for instructions for jam. They were sketchy to say the least - but here goes.

Buy strawberries and remove stalks - cut them up if you want to. Chuck them in a preserving pan.



Add preserving sugar - the granules of this are alarming large but apparently it gives you a more 'jewel' like jam.




Add some lemon juice (for pectin to help it set) and some balsamic vinegar. Now this balsamic vinegar was why I chose this recipe - hoping that it might give me a marvellously different tasting jam - but no, the quantity was so scant that it was hardly worth the bother, so if I were you I'd leave it out. Give it all a good stir and begin to heat gently.



Bring to the boil and cook for 4-8 minutes (notice the vaguary) until you get wrinkles on the surface of the jam when you place small teaspoonful on an icy cold plate that has spent the last 10 minutes residing in the freezer.



So the instructions were duly followed. The jam looked wrinkly and I left it to cool for the required 20 minutes. However Ms Lawson doesn't specify the degree of wrinkliness required - I didn't know whether we were talking Andie Mcdowal wrinkly (I hate that woman) or Robert Redford wrinkly. I went for Andie. But after the alotted 20 minutes I decided to add more lemon juice and go for a full on Robert to get the damn stuff to set.

By this point I was feeling rather sick from all the fingers I'd had to lick post wrinkle test (obligatory - it was a Nigella recipe after all) and the lucky old kitchen floor was becoming a mite sticky with jam dribbles. But set it finally did and I am now the proud owner of four jars of homemade strawberry jam (yet to be labelled). Whether or not it tastes any good will be for you to judge.



Halfway through the process I remembered that Mr Jones doesn't actually like strawberry jam - so he'll have to make do with some Bonne Marman instead - oops.

PS - no I have not just rinsed the labels off some Bonne Marman - see the step by step pics!