Sunny afternoon jam session

I'm one of those people who get migraines. One of my migraine triggers is orange, as in the fruit, which means that I go out of my way to avoid oranges and orange juice. Sadly, this also means that I also avoid jam as some jam is made with pectin that comes from orange. It's almost impossible (apart from the crashing migraine afterwards) to tell which jams are likely to contain secret orange (although usually apple jams are safe) and therefore I tend to just avoid all jam. Which is a big shame because I love jam, and the good things in life (scones and sponge cakes) are all the better for a big dollop of jam.

Which is why I make my own. I'm rubbish at saving and sterilising jars so I just make a big glass bowl of it once every four weeks or so and keep it in the fridge. Today was a jam making day. I tend to stick to the same formula more or less of:

* 4 parts fruit (it helps to include a small amount of fruit that is naturally high in pectin such as apple or quince)
* 4 parts caster sugar
* 1 part lemon juice

Today's jam was strawberry with a small apple (for extra setting power). I started off de-greening my strawberries with this handy device from Firebox. It grabs the stems out quickly and easily leaving you with most of the strawberry left. It certainly takes some of the tedium away from preparing a 1lb of strawberries!

I then mushed all the fruit up with a hand blender, stirred in the sugar and lemon juice, and slowly brought the jam to the boil. I turned up the heat and fast boiled until the jam was ready. Basically, the jam gets darker in colour and stickier and reduces and well, starts resembling jam rather than fruit mush. The longer you leave it boiling for the better the set of the jam will be. I find it tends to take about twenty minutes of fast boil. You can check that the jam is ready by dripping a small amount on a cold plate. If it begins to set straight away, you know that the jam is ready to go. If it doesn't set at all, it's going to need a lot more boiling. Pour the jam into containers (glass is best - believe me I found out the hard way why plastic isn't a good idea and so did my cooker when the jam melted its way through). If you are a lot more prepared and less lazy than me, or are planning to keep the jam for a long-ish time you will already have sterilised a set of glass jars in boiling water first. I clearly didn't (and don't) so it gets tipped into glass bowls.

And in my fridge the jam sits, waiting to make my toast happy in the mornings! The bread roll in the photo is home made too. As I mentioned in my first blog post, I love food, and love to have a pile of home baked rolls waiting to be enjoyed! Unlike many unloved breadmakers that sit lonely on the kitchen shelf, mine is always on the go! This recipe is made using the dough cycle. I use fast action yeast and let the breadmaker do all the hard work to mix and knead. When the dough is ready, I shape it into balls and stick cling film over the top and leave it on top of the oven while it heats up. When the dough has doubled in size, I then brush the tops with milk and put them in the oven until they brown. This is my own recipe and uses a little rye flour for a slightly more nordic taste. The ingredients are:

* 300ml liquid including 50 ml milk, 1 tablespoon melted cooled butter, and 1 egg (I put the milk, butter, and egg in a measuring jug and then top it up to 300ml with the water)

* 400g strong white bread flour

* 100g rye flour

* 1 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon caster sugar

* 1 and a half teaspoons fast action yeast