Kitchen Monkey

17 June 2008

Jamtastic for afternoon Tea!

With the onset of summer and abit of sunshine and we all head out for a day trip and find one of those marvellous little tea rooms for a traditional cream tea.

I have many a memory of some fabulous tea houses sitting in the sunshine with a full china service being brought to the table with clotted cream, scones and fresh strawberry jam and twinning’s earl grey tea in a china tea pot.

Well to share this with you it made me think about jams and preserves so here is my recipe ( a old family one handed down I might add) for the perfect strawberry jam to accompany your homemade scones for afternoon tea.

Jam is made by boiling fruit, sugar and lemon juice until it forms a gel which sets on cooling. In order for the gel to form all jam recipes require:
Pectin- this is found in the cell walls of fruit and the amount present depends on the type of fruit being used and the age or freshness of that fruit
Sugar
Lemon Juice
Make sure always as my grandma would say to use good quality fruit which is just ripe (or slightly under ripe) this is when the fruit has its highest pectin levels.

Simply place 3 cups of fruit to 1 cup of preserving sugar and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice in a saucepan, heating gently while the sugar melts then increase the heat and boil for approximately 5 minutes.
You can then simply spoon this into sterilised jars which you will need to seal we uses layers of greaseproof paper tied over the jar then cool and store in your fridge. It will keep for several weeks like this if it lasts that long mine never gets past 1 week in my house. Remember to label your jams and date them.

Also if you bake a batch of home baked scones you can actually freeze these for up to 6 months in a container so you always have some ready for visitors calling.

Send me you tea time memories or recipes to info@kitchenmonkey.co.uk