Hobbies!

I like jam. A lot. Even though I’ve liked a good jam/jelly/fruit spread for a long time, I think my real appreciation for it began in 2015. During a graduation trip to England, I ate a strawberry jam in Dartmoor National Park that I can still taste to this day. It was fresh and easily spreadable, and just the right amount of sweet, especially along with Devonshire clotted cream. It was totally different from store-bought jams, and it made quite an impression on me.

My dad's and my strawberry jam

What with my love for jam, I’ve long been interested in trying to make my own. However, two things stopped me. First, I had a very traditional image of jam-making in my head: hours over a stove, little jam jars covered in checkered cloths, and enough sweet, sticky results to feed a whole town. I assumed that jam-making was both too time-intensive for a graduate student, and WAY too much for a single person. Second, as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, baking was never my strong suit. I apparently lumped jam into the broader category of “baked goods,” even though that’s not really where jam lives in the food world. So, in spite of a love for homemade jam, I never tried it out.

Green grape

Until March of this year...my dad brought a recipe for easy fruit jam along with him on a family visit. We used fresh strawberries, and he walked me through the process. To my amazement, the jam took no more than an hour from beginning to end. There was enough to go around, but not so much that I’d be eating the same jam into my early forties. Best of all, it was extremely easy to make, with only fruit puree and sugar. The only “hard part” was stirring consistently to keep the stuff from sticking, not my own personal idea of difficult. I proclaimed that I wanted to keep making jam on my own.

Turns out, I discovered the ease and joy of jam-making at just the right time. The recommendations to self-isolate came just a matter of days after the strawberry jam set. Once the suggestions became orders, it became very clear that there was now a lot more time for hobbies and exploration for many people. I’m one of them, and am delighted to report that jam-making is a satisfying new hobby I’ve discovered. I’ve tried several types of fruit since last month, and learned quite a lot. Most notable are that green grapes make a beautiful golden jam, and that mangoes take VERY little time to solidify once they’re cooked down with sugar.

Thanks to COVID-19, I may never have to buy store-bought jam again.

Mango

Fruit Jam: This recipe is more of a template. It will make as much as you want it to make, but 2-3 cups of fruit puree makes 1-2 average size Tupperware containers’ worth of jam.

Fruit puree of your choice; so far, I’ve used strawberries, green grapes, and mangoes.*
1 cup of sugar per cup of puree

Bring the puree and sugar to a boil in a large pan, stirring consistently. The jam will expand and bubble at this stage, so err on the side of a larger pan. Once boiling, turn down heat to simmer-2 setting, and keep stirring, 20-25 minutes.
             Important Note: Certain types of fruit will solidify faster than others (looking at you, mango), so every few minutes, raise your stirring device and see if the jam takes a few seconds to drip. Once it gets to this stage, you should stop cooking it, even if you’re nowhere near the time. Otherwise, once it cools it will take on roughly the consistency of half-dry cement, like my green grape jam did.
             Before you take the jam off the heat, if there’s froth at the top, skim it off. Pour jam into a container to cool on the countertop. Serve on whatever bread or snack you think is appropriate; I highly recommend topping plain vanilla ice cream with strawberry!

* = Fresh versus frozen fruit doesn’t seem to make a difference in taste or consistency. If you use frozen fruit, just let it thaw overnight before you cook it down.