I’m notorious for giving homemade goodies at the holidays—from bags of squishy marshmallows and freshly ground hot chocolate to bottles of velvety Irish Cream.

I’m not usually one to brave the pre-Christmas crush at the malls (and I’m not organized enough to get my shopping done months in advance)—plus, I spend most of my time in the kitchen, anyway. So it kind of works out.

Candied fruit peel is one of those miraculous acts of culinary alchemy.

You take tough, bitter fruit rind that’s packed with oil you could use to polish your furniture, and, thanks to the magic of sugar, transform it into heavenly, fragrant candy.

The result is one part fruit, one part sweet jelly—and totally delicious. They’re like those fruit slices that my grandmother used to love. (You know the ones I mean.) Only a thousand times better.

Candied fruit peel is easier than you might think to make at home.

Basically, you blanch thin strips of peel to remove most of their bitterness, then let them take a leisurely soak in a bubbling sugar bath.

Let them drip dry, then roll them around in sugar until they’re wearing sparkle-y little sweaters.

Leave them out on a rack overnight to cure, and package them up and start handing them around.

That’s it! The process isn’t instant, but it certainly is easy.

To me, the hardest part of this whole process is getting the peel off in nice, presentable pieces. I’ve included detailed instructions on how to do just that.

Should I remove the white pith from the peel?

I say no. Here’s why.

A little unscientific research on the interwebs reveals that there are differing opinions on how much of the papery white pith to remove from the peel.

Some folks recommend scraping off every last bit of it, because it’s bitter. Some say leave the pith on and blanch the peels.

I’m in the latter camp. A quick swim in boiling water soaks out a lot of that bitterness. The simmering sugar bath takes care of the rest. I never cut the pith off, and it’s never been a problem. Plus, it means there’s less prep—and more candy to love.

So, pith on or off: It’s entirely up to you.

This recipe will work with most citrus fruits

I happened to use oranges, but this technique will work with lemon, lime, grapefruit, and blood orange (etc.).

Candied fruit peel + flavored simple syrup = two treats in one

Once you cook the fruit peel, don’t toss the sugar syrup! It’s deeply flavorful and will make a wonderful addition to desserts, cocktails, and tea.

Just pour the sugar syrup through a strainer to capture any errant bits of peel, then toss it in the fridge and use within a month or so.

This recipe calls for equal parts sugar and water, just like regular simple syrup. The addition of the fruit peel and the long cooking time can throw your proportions off, though, which means that your syrup may wind up crystallizing a little—or a lot.

If that happens, just heat the syrup up to liquify it again and you’re good to go.

Candied Orange Peel

3 large oranges
4 cups water
4 cups sugar + 1 cup sugar for coating the peel

Yields about 3/4 – 1 lb. candy, depending on how big your oranges are

Peel the oranges

Grab your oranges. Give them a rinse under cold water, then wipe them dry.

Whack about a quarter-of-an-inch off each end.

You want about this much of the inside showing:

With a sharp paring knife, cut through the peel and into the white pith. Slice through the peel from the top of the orange to the bottom. Don’t cut all the way through the pith and into the fruit.

Make the same cut a few inches over.

Cut a shallow semi-circle into the top of the orange at the edge of the peel to connect the two cuts you just made.

Wiggle your finger under one edge of the peel. Work your finger down under the peel to separate it from the fruit.

Keep going until you’ve removed the whole piece of peel.

Repeat this process until you’ve removed all the peel in nice, whole pieces.

Then do the same with the other oranges.

At this point, if you’re like me, you may start playing with the orange rinds, like they’re Legos. Save the oranges, and do something yummy with them.

Slice each piece of peel into thin strips. Mine were about as wide as a No. 2 pencil, give or take.

Blanch the orange peels

Put a few inches of water in a medium-sized pot and set it on the stove over high heat to boil. (Sidebar: Look for a post soon on how to make an easy homemade polish for your embarrassingly tarnished copper pots.)

When it’s boiling, drop in all the sliced orange peel.

Give the pot a stir to soak them all.

Boil for about 20 minutes.

Drain the peel in a colander. Run under cold water until the peels are cool to the touch (this will take a minute or two). I should note that many recipes have you blanch the peel a few times. I’ve done it that way before, and I honestly don’t see any difference. Once is just fine with me.

At this point, your peels will be floppy and kind of sad looking. That’s just fine. Leave ‘em in the colander while you whip up the sugar syrup.

Simmer the fruit peel in sugar syrup

Put the water and sugar in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot over high heat. Whisk to combine. Bring the syrup up to a boil, whisking occasionally until all the sugar melts.

When the sugar syrup is boiling, carefully add the blanched peel to the pot. (Be careful! Boiling sugar is like napalm.)

Give the peel a stir. Lower the heat a little. You want to maintain a rolling (but not furious and bubbling over) boil.

Boil the peel for about 45 minutes like this. (Keep a good eye on the pot after 30 minutes. Your peel may take more or less time, depending on how thick it is.) Your kitchen will start to smell amazing after a few minutes.

The peel is done when it’s translucent.

It should look jellied and clear, like candy:

Drain the orange peel

Grab a baking sheet. Line it with a few paper towels. Set a rack on top of the towels.

A few at a time, fish the peel out of the syrup with a fork.

Set the peel on your prepared rack to drain. Repeat until all the peel is on the rack.

Let the peel drip dry for about 15 minutes.

Roll the fruit peel in sugar & dry out overnight

Remove the sticky rack with the orange peel from the sheet pan and set it aside on the counter. Put a clean rack in its place on the pan. (You don’t want to use the same, sticky one for the finished candy.)

After about 15 minutes, put 1 cup of sugar in a medium-sized bowl. Drop a few pieces of the peel into the sugar. (I do this a few pieces at a time to keep them from clumping together.)

Roll the peel around to coat on all sides.

You want each piece to be completely coated, like this. Give the peel a tap against the side of the bowl to knock off the extra sugar.

Set the sugar-coated peel on the clean rack.

Repeat with the rest of the peel until it’s all coated in sugar. Space them out so they’re not touching. Leave them out just like this, uncovered, to dry out overnight.

Save the syrup!

Don’t forget all that luscious syrup.

Run it through a strainer to remove any bits of peel that might be left in it.

Let it cool to room temperature, then pop it into the fridge and use it up within a month. Depending on how much liquid evaporated, it might solidify a little (or a lot) in the fridge. If that happens, just heat it up to dissolve.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to enter this week’s giveaway!

The prize is a Nespresso espresso machine! The contest closes on Friday at midnight. Enter to win here.

Cheers!

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There are a few failproof signs of fall for me. Catching a whiff of wild Concord grapes on a cool day in September is one of them.

The heady, slightly musky smell is a sure sign that the weather is well on its way to turning colder. (Do you have grapes growing out back in your yard? Then you know just the intoxicating fragrance I’m talking about.) I was delighted to find them when we were out and about this weekend. I grabbed a few boxes, and practically skipped home to make some jam.

Facts about Concord grapes

Concord grapes are the very same little purple wonders that give Welch’s grape juice its signature flavor.

Concord grapes come from (you guessed it) Concord, a now-sleepy little Massachusetts town that was a hotbed of activity during the Revolutionary war. Concord was home to writers and thinkers like Thoreau and Emerson. And it’s also not that far from where we live in Salem.

They were first planted by Ephraim Wales Bull in 1854. His grapes were hardy, and survived in Concord, where other European varieties did not.

Nowadays, Concord grapes also grow in the wild all over many parts of the Northeast. And when summer turns to fall, you can find them in stores and farmers’ markets if you’re lucky.

A few facts about Concord grapes:

• Concord grapes are a dark purplish black, and are often covered in a light layer of harmless white bloom.
• They’re usually less sweet than traditional grapes.
• Concord grapes are also a “slip-skin” variety of grape (as opposed to “fixed-skin”), which means that they pop right out of their jackets when you give them a little squeeze.
• They’re generally used for juice and jam or jelly, not for eating out of hand because they have big seeds.
• Folks also put them into pies and tarts, like this.

Notes on timing, pectin, and canning

The timing on this recipe is imprecise at best, and will depend on your particular batch of grapes, specifically on how much pectin they had. Fruit loses pectin as it ripens. (And pectin is the stuff that thickens jam.) Concord grapes don’t have a ton of pectin, and each batch will be slightly different. For that reason, this recipe also relies on reducing the jam to thicken it.

The bottom line? Cook the jam for 20 minutes as I indicate, then check it and cook it a little longer if it’s not done. Keep reading, I’ve included just what you need to look for.

Also, this recipe makes about 4 pints, which is a relatively small amount of jam. I just keep it fresh in the fridge, where it will be happy for weeks—if it lasts that long.

For instructions on how to properly can jams and jellies, take a peek at these instructions from the good folks over at Ball.

Concord Grape Jam

3 lbs. concord grapes
3 cups sugar
2 Tbls. lemon juice

Yields about 4 pints

Skin the grapes

This is a pain to do, but it goes faster than you think it will. It’s also kind of gross, but kind of fun. If you have kids in the kitchen, they’ll make perfect little helpers.

Grab a grape. Remove the stem. Give it a gentle squeeze between your thumb and first two fingers. The skin will split, and the meat of the grape will pop right out.

Do this over a bowl, so you can catch the juice that the grapes give off. There’ll be a fair amount of it and you’ll want to toss that into the jam pot with the fruit.

Keep the grapes in a bowl…

…and set the skins aside in another (or just heap them in a pile, like I did). Repeat until you’ve skinned all your grapes.

Puree the grape skins

Once all your grapes are peeled, put the skins in the food processor. (I’m reasonably sure a good blender would work for this, but haven’t tested it.) Toss in 1 cup of the sugar.

Process them on high for a minute or two. The skins will combine with the sugar and completely liquify. This is fun and feels like magic. (Hey, it’s the little things!) It happens almost instantly, and is delightfully shocking to see. Be careful from this point on. This stuff stains like mad.

The mixture will be thick, like this, and flecked with bits of grape skin. That’s just fine. You’re going to strain the mixture eventually. (Give it a taste. It’s heavenly already.)

Cook the Concord grape jam

Put the pureed skins in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot. Add the peeled grapes.

Add the lemon juice, as well.

And the remaining 2 cups of sugar.

Stir the whole mess up to combine it well.

Set the pot on the stove over high heat and bring it to a boil. Stir occasionally.

Once it boils, drop the heat low enough so that the jam maintains a simmer—but doesn’t rapidly boil.

Cook like this for 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Keep an eye on the heat. If the jam feels like it’s sticking to the bottom of the pot when you stir, lower your heat a little. (If you keep the heat too high, it will scorch and your jam will have a burnt taste.)

After 20 minutes, your jam will have thickened and reduced, and should look about like this:

Strain the jam

Before you start, grab a plate and put it in the freezer. You’ll need it to test the jam in a few minutes.

Set a large, heatproof bowl on the counter. Fit a strainer on top. Pour the jam through the strainer, into the bowl. Be very careful when you do this. It may be delicious, but boiling hot jam is like napalm.

With a spatula, push the jam through the strainer. Keep smooshing it until most of the jam is in the bowl, and you’re left with a lump of seedy pulp in the strainer, like this:

How to test the jam for doneness

This is the part where the recipe gets a little imprecise. Now, at this point, your jam should be pretty thick. But the question is: Is it thick enough? Let’s find out. (A note for my buddy Jeff over at A Dork and His Pork: Yes, I switched spatulas at this point.)

Grab that plate that you just stashed in your freezer a few minutes ago. It should be very cold to the touch. If it’s not, stick it back in until it is.

When your plate is cold, drop a spoonful of hot jam on it in a little puddle. Pop the plate back into the freezer for 1 minute. (Yep, just one minute will do the trick.)

After 1 minute, yank the plate out. Tip the plate on its side. The jam should stay where it is in a blob, not run down the plate. Next, scoot the jam a little with a finger. The jam should have a skin that wrinkles up, like this:

If your jam passes both these tests, it’s done! If it’s still too thin, take the strained jam and simmer it for another few minutes. Then test it again. Repeat until it’s thick enough.

Jar, serve, and enjoy!

Ladle your warm jam into clean, sterilized jars. Let them cool to room temperature, then cover them and pop them in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Peek into a readers’ kitchens as they make this jam

Update—October 13, 2009—A special thanks to Sheldon, who made a huge batch of this jam from Concord grapes in his own yard. He was kind enough to send me the video he and his son made.

Here’s what he wrote:

“This is a video my son helped me make – turning 12 pounds of the Valiant strain of Concord Grapes into jars of jam. I found that every pound of grapes took one cup of sugar (and a bit of lemon juice) yielding one 250 ml jar of jam. It wasn’t too sweet…in fact just a bit tart, but really is one of the best jams or jellies I’ve ever made.

A very special thank you to Jessie at the Hungry Mouse for her wonderful, easy to follow and well illustrated recipe. Here is a link to that page, which I had opened the entire time I was making the jam.”

And here’s his video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh, he also canned it in a traditional water bath. Some of you have asked how that works out, and it looks like it’s just fine! He didn’t add any additional ingredients (no Certo or Surejell).

Update—October 14, 2009—Thanks also to Charlene from crazedparent, who shared this picture of her jam-making adventure.

Update—October 20, 2009—And thanks to Jeff from A Dork and His Pork (seriously, one of my favorite food blogs, ever) for his picture of jam from this recipe. That’s his homemade bread, too.

Cheers!

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This recipe produces classic bread and butter pickles—the kind my mom used to make every summer when I was a little mouse. They’re sweet. They’re tangy. They have a fabulous crunch. Like my Quick, Fresh Pickles, there’s no canning required for these babies (in fact, they just need an overnight soak in the fridge). And, honestly, they don’t need to be canned. This recipe only uses about 4 pickling cucumbers. Your pickles will keep for a few weeks in the fridge—which is more than ample time to gobble them up.

Top juicy, grilled burgers with a few pickles. Chop them up for an impromptu relish. Or, you know, just eat ‘em straight out of the bowl.

I slice my cukes up with a regular knife. For an extra fancy bread-and-butter pickle, use a crinkle cutter to produce a scalloped edge.

They get their fabulous yellow-ish color from a small dose of ground tumeric (a little goes a long way).

Ground tumeric

I was out of whole celery seed when I made these this time, so I used ground celery seed (not celery salt) instead. It worked like a charm.

Ground celery seed

Be sure to use a heatproof bowl for your cukes. (You’ll be pouring the boiling brine right over them.)

Oh, about the rice wine vinegar

Rice wine vinegar typically comes in a few different forms, mainly seasoned and unseasoned.

Seasoned rice wine vinegar already has a fair amount of sugar in it. Be sure to get unseasoned rice wine vinegar for this recipe. This lets you to control the sweetness, flavor, and amount of sugar in your pickles.

Classic Bread & Butter Pickles

4 large pickling cucumbers
1 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
6 Tbls. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt (for the cukes) + 2 Tbls. kosher salt (for the brine)
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
1/4 tsp. celery seed (or ground celery seed)
1/4 tsp. ground tumeric

Makes 4 – 5 cups of pickles (liquid + pickles)

Slice and salt the cucumbers

Grab your cukes. Wash them well under cold water and pat ‘em dry.

Nip off each end with a sharp knife and discard. Then cut each cuke into slices.

Make the slices as even as you can, but don’t make yourself nuts.

Toss them into a medium-sized bowl.

Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.

Mix them around to distribute the salt.

Let the cukes sit like this on the counter for one hour. This helps to draw water out of the cucumbers, which will help them stay crunchy when they’re pickled.

After about an hour, you should have a fair amount of water in your bowl. Drain the sliced cukes and discard the liquid.

Layer the pickles in a bowl.

Be sure that your bowl is heatproof.

Make the brine

Put the rice wine vinegar, water, and white balsamic vinegar in a medium-sized pot.

Add the sugar and 2 tablespoons of kosher salt.

Whisk to combine. Set the pot on the stove over high heat.

Cook, whisking occasionally, until the sugar and salt completely dissolve.

Leave the mixture on high heat. Toss in the mustard seed, celery seed, and tumeric.

Whisk the mixture occasionally, and cook on high heat until it comes up to a boil.

Pour the brine over the cucumbers

When the mixture boils, take it off the heat. Pour it over the sliced cucumbers.

Let the pickles cool uncovered until they reach room temperature.

Soak the cucumbers overnight

Then cover them with plastic wrap and pop them in the fridge overnight.

The next day, they should be have developed a deeper yellow color and a fairly intense pickle-y flavor.

And that’s it! Your pickles are ready to eat. Keep them in the fridge for a few weeks, if they last that long.

Serve and enjoy!

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These crisp pickles are high on my list of nibbles and noshes to take on a picnic or a barbecue. They’re the perfect cool companion to spicy barbecue or lunch-counter favorites like a thick pastrami on rye. And while pickling can seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be. You can make these crunchy spears overnight with a handful of pickling cukes. The best part? No canning required.

This recipe makes a manageable amount of pickles. (12 pickle spears, to be exact. That’s 4 pickling cukes, quartered.) It’s easily doubled or tripled, should your pickle demand be greater.

They get a good balance of old-fashioned pickle flavor from fennel, coriander, dill, mustard—and subtle heat from a smidge of chili flakes. The brine is heated briefly to help coax pungent flavor out of the dried herbs.

A heady mixture of rice wine vinegar, white balsamic vinegar, and sugar give these pickles a hint of sweetness and good amount of tang.

Pickling spice and everything nice

Hey, Mouse! What are all those seeds and spices, anyway?

Dill Seed

Dill seed is brown-ish and flat, and is actually the dried fruit of the dill plant. Heating it brings out its flavor.

Fennel Seed

Fennel seed is the seed of the bulb-less common fennel plant (as opposed to the Florence fennel, which has a bulb—as well as stalks and fronds). It’s used in both sweet and savory recipes.

Mustard Seed

Mustard seeds come in two main varieties—white (a.k.a. yellow) and brown (a.k.a.) Asian. White seeds like the ones I bought are larger than brown ones, and are the typical seed used in most American mustards.

Coriander Seed

These seeds come from the Coriander plant, which is more commonly known as cilantro in the U.S. Their flavor is a little lemon-y with a hint of caraway. Coriander frequently shows up in pickles, mulled wine, and baked goods.

Aleppo Chili

Now, this isn’t a typical pickling spice—but it is one of my all-time favorite ways to add a little heat to a dish. These Turkish chili flakes taste kind of like ancho peppers.

Garlic cloves, halved

No pickles (at least at The Mouse House) would be quite the same without garlic. To prep the garlic, nip the ends off each clove with a knife. Remove the peel. Slice each clove in half.

Fresh Dill

I top off my pickles with a bunch of fresh dill. I use it at the end like this, since (unlike dried dill seed) the fresh herb loses its flavor quickly when heated.

Get to the pickles, Mouse. Yep, yep! Here you go.

Quick Fresh Pickles

4 large pickling cucumbers
1 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar
1 cup water
1/3 cup white balsamic vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
3 Tbls. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt (for the cukes) + 2 Tbls. kosher salt (for the brine)
3 cloves garlic, peeled and cut in half
1/4 tsp. dill seed
1/4 tsp. Aleppo chili flakes
1/4 tsp. coriander seed
1/4 tsp. fennel seed
1/4 tsp. mustard seed
1 bunch of fresh dill

Yields 12 pickle spears

Slice and salt the cucumbers

Grab your pickling cukes. Scrub them well under cold water, then dry them off.

Slice each cucumber in half.

Then slice each side in half again, so you wind up with quarters.

Repeat with the other cucumbers. Put the cucumber spears in a medium-sized bowl.

Sprinkle on 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.

Mix the cucumber spears around well to distribute the salt.

Let the cucumber spears sit in the bowl like this, on the counter, for about an hour. Salting the cukes like this helps draw out excess water—which in turn helps keep your pickles crunchy.

After about an hour, your cukes will have let off a fair amount of water. Drain that off and discard.

Make the brine for the pickles

Put the rice wine vinegar, water, and white balsamic vinegar (or white wine vinegar) in a medium-sized pot.

Toss in the sugar and 2 Tbls. of kosher salt.

Set the pot on the stove over high heat. Whisk to combine.

Whisk until the sugar and salt are dissolved.

Bring the mixture up to a boil.

When it starts to bubble, toss in the garlic, coriander seed, fennel seed, dill seed, mustard seed, and Aleppo chili flakes.

Whisk to combine. Take the pot off the heat and let it stand for 5 minutes to help release the flavor of the herbs.

Pour the brine over the cucumbers

In the meantime, pack your cucumber spears into a smallest bowl that will hold them all. You want them to be fairly close together so that they’re all covered by the brine.

Pour the hot brine over the cucumber spears.

Trim your bunch of fresh dill so that it will fit in your bowl. Lay it on top of the pickles, so that they’re covered, like this:

Let them sit on the counter like this until the brine cools to room temperature.

When it’s cool, push down on the mixture with your hand.

You want to submerge the pickles and douse the dill with brine.

Soak the cucumbers in brine overnight

Wrap the bowl tightly with plastic wrap.

Set it in the fridge overnight to let the brine soak into the cukes.

Serve & enjoy

The next day, unwrap your pickles.

And that’s it!

No really, that’s it! When you’re ready to serve, fish the pickles out of the brine and heap them up on a platter along with pieces of garlic and a few strands of dill.

Pickles will keep for a few weeks in the fridge�if they last that long.

Enjoy!

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I love jam. On toast. In marinades for ribs and glazes for chicken. Warmed up and drizzled over vanilla ice cream. This sweet cherry jam is a fabulous way to enjoy cherries as they come into season. Because this jam has a lot of sugar, I never bother canning it. It will keep just fine in the fridge for a few weeks—if it lasts that long.

This recipe calls for 2 pounds of cherries, which is about all that I can bear to pit in one sitting. And that’s just fine. This recipe yields just about 2 cups of jam…which is more than enough for me for a few weeks.

This is one of the few tasks that I actually wear rubber gloves for, to help avoid staining my hands bright red.

How to use a cherry pitter

I use an old fashioned cherry pitter.

It squeezes together like a pair of scissors, and has a long spike on one end.

When you squeeze the pitter, the spike skewers the cherry and pops the pit right out. (It also tends to squirt out a little cherry juice, so be careful where you pit your cherries.)

Sweet Cherry Jam

2 lbs. cherries, pitted and stemmed
zest from 1 lemon
juice from 2 lemons
1 1/2 – 1 3/4 cups sugar

Yields about 2 cups of jam

Pit your cherries

Toss your cherries in a colander and rinse them well under cold water.

Heap them in a pile on the counter and grab a bowl.

Grab your cherry pitter.

Pull the stem off a cherry and set it on your pitter like this:

Squeeze the pitter closed, which will drive the spike through the center of the cherry.

This will send the cherry pit shooting out the other end of the pitter.

Put the pitted cherry in your bowl. Repeat with the rest of your cherries until you’ve pitted them all. (I think this took me about 20 minutes, maybe a little less.)

Chop half the pitted cherries

Once you’ve pitted all your cherries, take about half of them and set them on a board.

Roughly chop them up.

Put the chopped cherries back with in the bowl with the whole cherries.

Throw all the cherries in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed pot.

Zest and juice the lemons

Quickly scrape the zest off one lemon.

(You can zest both lemons, but I prefer less zest, so I only do one.)

Then slice both lemons in half and squeeze them into the pot. (I used a lemon reamer to be sure to get as much juice as I could.)

Toss in the lemon zest.

Give the pot a stir to combine your ingredients.

Simmer the fruit mixture

Set the pot on the stove over medium-high heat. After a few minutes, the juice in the pot should come up to a simmer.

Give it a stir. Drop the heat to low. Cover the pot and crack the lid a smidge. You want the fruit mixture to just simmer.

Keep a close eye on the pot. If the heat is too high, it can bubble up and over on you. (Take my word from experience…hot cherry juice is a m-e-s-s you don’t want to clean up.)

Simmer the fruit mixture like this 15-20 minutes.

After 15-20 minutes, the fruit should be soft and fairly broken down, like this:

Add the sugar to the fruit mixture

Add the sugar to the pot.

Give the pot a stir to combine well. Raise the heat and bring it back up to a simmer. Cook like this, uncovered, for maybe 6-8 minutes more.

As the jam simmers, it will thicken.

You want the jam mixture to get visibly thicker.

When you stir the jam, it should be so thick that you can see the bottom of the pot, like this:

How to test the jam for doneness

When it looks and feels thicker, give it a test. Dip the back of a metal spoon into the mixture. It should coat the back well, like this:

Next, drop a blob of jam onto a ceramic plate.

Put the plate in the freezer for a few minutes. When the jam is good and cold, give it a push with your finger. If it forms a skin and wrinkles up, like this, it should be thick enough to set up nicely.

Cool the jam and enjoy!

Take the jam pot off the stove and let it cool to room temperature. When it’s cool, transfer it to a bowl, cover it, and pop it in the fridge to cool completely.

Keep your jam tightly wrapped in the fridge and use up within the next few weeks.

Enjoy!

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