I have three apple trees in the garden and while they are still very young, they are producing some fruit. This year I was able to get enough off them to make a couple of fruit crumbles combining with some of my raspberries and blackberries. But there isn’t enough to make other things. However I have been lucky enough to be given apples by several people, so this weekend, with my mother’s help, we made apple and cinnamon jam.
I picked up a copper jam pan on Catawiki a few months ago but I only got to use it for the first time this weekend. It really does make things a lot easier. The copper conducts heat really well and the pan’s width means that the fruit mix heats more evenly and quickly. With more standard saucepans you can’t quite get the same effect.
Making your own preserves, whether they’re sweet or savoury, is really satisfying in so many ways. This morning while I was enjoying some lovely apple and cinnamon jam on toast I felt a moment of nostalgia. As a child my grandmother used to make jams and marmalades too and I used to “help” her. I probably hindered way more than I helped of course, but as a small child you just love getting involved and getting to lick the spoon was a reward and a moment of pure joy. More than 40 years later I still feel a sensation of joy when I look at a bunch of jars filled with various things that I’ve made or helped make (my mother did all the apple peeling for this weekend’s jam making session).
Just look at these:
Aren’t they lovely?
Of course the jars are a motley collection of recycled jars from various jams, honeys and other things. Ideally I should soak them all properly to remove the old labels, but that didn’t happen this time round. I have, however, got some handy labels which make identifying what’s in jars much easier. If you’re going to make jams or chutneys getting a roll of plain labels that you can write on is worth the investment.
I’ve recently started getting vegetables boxes from a local supplier and so today we will be making an apple and fig jam of some kind, as I got figs in my most recent delivery and I of course forgot to put them in the fridge!
Either way August and September are the months when you’re likely to find me making all the preserves in the kitchen and if you get a gift of a jar of jam with a funky label and my awful scrawl you know it’s real!
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