Mulberry Jam - A simple recipe

The mulberries soaking in the sugar, and the mulberries cooking.

Almost three years ago I planted a mulberry tree next to our shed. At that stage it was little more than a twig with two leaves on it. It was difficult to imagine that in three short years it's branches would be so heavy with fruit that I would happily allow the birds to take their fill and still be filling a colander with fruit each day. I feel rich with fruit! And to celebrate I have been sharing it with my neighbours, freezing it for when the tree is exhausted and turning my hand to jam making. 

I've attempted Mulberry jam in the past with limited success. My first batch wouldn't set and jars and jars of runny jam went to waste. My second batch I overcooked in an effort to right the wrongs of my first batch. This time the contents of my jars was something like a fruit toffee, though less edible. This week though I found satisfaction! I cooked a batch of jam that made me proud and which has been covering muffins and crumpets ever since.

Where I had been going wrong was trying to cook Mulberry jam the same way I cook Strawberry jam. But Mulberries are thicker, denser and need more cooking time. Cooking in smaller batches also seems like the best way to go. I've written down my steps for future reference, and for anyone else interested in making their own jam. I learnt to make jam after a whole lot of googling, and tips from Rhonda at Down to Earth blog.

You will need -

800 grams Mulberries

800 grams white sugar

3 tablespoons of lemon juice

Scales

Stock pot

Wooden Spoon

Teaspoon

Tongs 

Jam jars

Funnel

Measuring cup

Wash the fruit and twist the stems from the top - you can pinch them off too, but this hurts your fingers after awhile.

Weigh your Mulberries and sugar, you want about the same amount of fruit as sugar, though you can try using a little less sugar.

Place fruit in your biggest saucepan - I use a stock pot - and cover with sugar. Mix and leave for an hour.

Meanwhile, wash up your jam jars and heat your oven up on to a low heat (80 degrees) and place jars inside to sterilise them. Place a saucepan in the freezer.

Add lemon juice to fruit and sugar, bring to the boil while mixing.

Allow mixture to bubble up and skim the foam off the top.

Turn down to a rolling boil and keep stirring so the jam doesn't burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. Cook for approx. 20 minutes, or until mixture seems less runny.

Take a teaspoon of the liquid mixture and drip it across the plate from the freezer. This cools the boiling liquid so you can see if the jam has 'set' or not. This step confused me at first. I wasn't sure how to tell if it has set or not. What you are looking for is for your drips to behave like store brought jam. So when you push your fingernail through the drip, the mixture should part and not run back together again. If it does, keep cooking and try again in another ten minutes. If the mixture bunches up and stays separated, it has set and you need to turn the heat off.

Using your tongs to remove the jars from the oven and place the funnel in the mouth of one of the jars. I use a measuring cup with a lip to scoop up the jam mixture and pour it in to the jar. Be careful, it's hot! And hot jam burns! Leave a couple of centimeters room at the top of the jar.

Pop on your lids, turn the jars upside and leave them to cool and they are ready to eat.

If you aren't going to eat them straight away, and you want to store the jam for up to twelve months, you will need to use a water bath method to kill any bacteria in the jar.

Wash out your stock pot and fill it up half way with hot water. Bring it to the boil with a tea towel in the bottom. Place the jars in on top of the tea towel - this helps to avoid them from breaking or cracking on the bottom of the pan - making sure they are covered with water and bring the water back up to the boil and leave it to boil for about an hour.

Remove jars with tongs and let cool overnight.
Store in a dark, cool cupboard for up to a year.

Happy jam making!

8 Little Things

1. $26 worth of sale fabric for my Summer Sewing Challenge - to make a dress, skirt and shorts for Emerson and pants and pj shorts for Cohen.
2. Black Russians from the garden - it really has been a warm Winter, hasn't it?
3. A little skirt cut out and ready for some nap time sewing.
4. Pickings from the veggie patch - baby spinach, peas, cherry toms and chilli's.
5. Finished skirt! That makes three.
6. Purple carrots for our Sunday Roast.
7. Wise words from Oscar Wilde and Paper Boat Press.
8. Stage one of the doll house DIY complete - carpet and wall papers removed.  A much greater challenge than I had anticipated!

What lovely things have you been making, growing or doing lately?

Eight Reasons to Smile

1. Little Miss Independent

2. Cat-sitting a second black cat

3. Home grown chilli - in everything

4. Contemplating the stairs

5. Cuteness

6. Discarded treasures

7. Larch knitting

8. Bed making challenges

What's making you smile?

Ten things I have learnt about making jam

This list was inspired by Mama Shara, who asked for more info after seeing the image above in my instagram feed. She has shied away from making jam in the past, assuming she would need canning jars or specilised equipment, but with a Mulberry tree in her backyard I think she will have everything she needs. Hopefully this post will give her, and others thinking about trying their hand at jam, a gentle nudge. Nothing tastes better than homemade jam. The satisfaction of making a single jar, or a whole years worth, is a wonderful feeling indeed.

You already have all that you need to make jam. When I first made jam I too thought I would need specialised equipment to make it. I went and brought jars and scales, and thought I would wing it with what I had until I could afford to buy jar tongs, thermometers and the like. Now I know better. If you have any or all of those things, great, use them. If not, don't worry, nearly every kitchen already has what you need to make jam. A stock pot, a wooden spoon, a knife, a saucer, kitchen tongs and some empty jars. And while I love the look of matching Mason jars all in a row like something from a magazine, part of making jam for me is about being thrifty and recycling. So, I save up our old jars - olives, ginger, pickled onions, whatever we bring in to the house - and use them.

Cleaning jars is simple. You don't even have to take the labels off if you don't want to. To make sure the jars are sanitized you can pop them in the dishwasher while you are making your jam, then spoon the finished jam in to the still warm jars. You can boil the jars in a big saucepan. Or you can wash them by hand and pop them in a low oven until you are ready to use them. You just want clean jars so that you can store your jam for up to a year without it spoiling. And you don't want to put hot jam in a cold glass jar, just in case it cracks. (I'm yet to have this happen to me. But why risk it?)

Pectin is to jam what gelatin is to jelly. Reading about jam and words like 'pectin' and 'gelling temperature' scared me off jam making for awhile. I wasn't confidant about my kitchen skills. And while making jam will make you feel like a domestic goddess, anyone that can cut fruit and boil water can make jam. It's true! And the more jam you make the better you will get at it. All you need to know is that pectin helps jam set. Not enough pectin, is like not enough gelatin, it just won't set. Any jam recipe you look at though will tell you what to put in to get it to set. Rosellas have pectin in their seeds, so you simmer them in water, chuck out the seeds and use that water to make your jam. Isn't Mother Nature wonderful? Strawberries have their own pectin in them too. And gelling temperature? That's just how hot the jam needs to get for it to set. Like making jelly, the gelatin needs to dissolve so the jelly sets. Cold water and gelatin won't make jelly. Do you need to know what temperature the jam needs to be for the sugar to dissolve? Nope, you can tell by looking, or dipping in your spoon and running your finger over the spoon and feeling for the little grains. Do you need to know the precise temperature that jam sets at? Nope. Just use a cold saucer.

The saucer trick works. Yes, a saucer or plate popped in the freezer is all you need to test if your jam is ready. It's hard to tell just by looking at a boiling saucepan of jam if it is going to have the right consistency once it is cool, so cool a few drops. Dip your wooden spoon in and drip a few drops on your cold plate. If the drops cool and stay runny, you need to boil your mixture for longer. If you can push your finger nail through the drips and they wrinkle up, and look jam-like, it's ready. Don't worry if you have to test a few times. Pop the plate back in the freezer, give it another five or ten minutes and try again. 

You can fix your mistakes. Short of burning the jam (which you will smell!), you can fix the problems you may face when making jam. Jam didn't set? Boil it a little longer. Jam set too thick? Stir though some apple juice to get it to the right consistency. Jam is more forgiving than you may think. If in doubt, google is your friend. Jam makers love giving advice - see above and below. :) Rhonda is a fountain of information.

Homegrown makes sense. Making jam from store brought fruit is great. You can choose whatever you want buy. Strawberries can be quite cheap in season. You can make your own mixes too - say a punnet of raspberries, strawberries and apple. But, to make jam that is more economical and free of pesticides or chemicals, you really need to grow your own fruit, or have family, friends or neighbours who will share their produce with you. What could be better than homegrown? We are lucky enough to have neighbours with a mandarin tree who hand plastic bags full of fruit over the fence. Another friend shares the fruits from her prolific lemon tree. My sisters Mother in Law has a big, beautiful Mulberry tree, lemon and orange trees and sends my sister home with big bowls and bags of fruit, knowing I love to make jam.

I had grand visions of growing enough strawberries to make jam. My little ones had small visions of daily snacks in the garden. No jam was forthcoming. Instead I planted Gooseberry, Rosellas and a Mulberry tree. I believe I would probably have to devote half my yard to strawberry plants in order to grow enough to make a years worth of jam. But three Rosella bushes, which take up a couple of meters each, produced more than enough fruit to preserve a years worth of jam, and more to share. Come September my two year old Mulberry should be producing enough fruit for me to preserve and freeze too. You can also use frozen fruit. If on't have time to make the jam right away, but have a tree full of fruit, or don't have enough fruit to make jam yet, freeze the fruit and make jam when you have a bit of time.

Only fill the stock pot half way! If you have a lot of fruit you will need to cook it in batches. Jam bubbles up like crazy when it is on the boil, and sticky jam all over your stove is not a great look. It also helps keep your ratios right if you cook it in batches of about three cups of fruit. And remember how I said you don't need scales? The basic rule of jam is one cup of fruit to one cup of sugar. Instead of weighing your fruit and sugar, just use a measuring cup. If you have two and a half cups of fruit, use two and a half cups of sugar.

Your stock pot is your water bath. If you make one or two jars of jam, pop them in the fridge and use them. If you make several pots of jam, in order to ensure there are no germs in you jars that will spoil the contents over time, you need to pop the jars in to a stock pot (or the biggest pot your own) of boiling water and leave them in there for up to two hours (it will take up to an hour for the boiling water to return to the boil depending on the size of the pot and the number of the jars, then you want your jars to sit in the boiling water for about an hour. If the pot is not large enough to allow an inch of water over the top of the jars don't worry, you can turn the jar upside down and just process them for a bit longer. I tend to use those jars up first though, just in case. Rhonda talks about this too, here.

Filling the jars. You can buy fancy wide mouth funnels to make filling your jars easier and less messy. Or, like me, you can cut the bottom off a cheap kitchen funnel from your local supermarket. Or use a measuring cup with a lip, scoop up the jam and pour it in. Wipe the mouth of the jar before you put the lid on if any has spilled.

Kitchen tongs make good bottle tongs. Again, you can buy specilised bottle tongs to pick up your hot jars of jam out of the boiling water, or you can use your good old kitchen tongs and pick up the bottle by the lid and pop a tea towel under it to hold it and move it to where you want it to cool.

-

I hope that the information above has given you the confidence to give it a go and turn seasonal fruit in to a year long treat. Any questions, please feel free to ask in the comment. Fellow jam makers, please feel free to leave any tips, advice or recipes of your own in the comments section too!

Jam and romantic notions

I have long held on to the somewhat romantic notion of feeding my family from our garden. Of being more self sufficient. Of tuning in to the seasons. Of providing fresh, pesticide free produce with few food miles. Of noticing a difference in our food budget. Creating a cycle of adding nutrients to our soil to be taken up by plants, whose leaves, peelings and seeds will be added to the compost to break down before being added back to the soil. A cycle repeated throughout the seasons. Cycles that, combined with hard work, experience, knowledge and the will of mother nature, produce enough in the way of fruit, vegetables and herbs to eat, share and preserve. 

With each tomato harvested, each watermelon picked, each aubergine cut, each carrot pulled, each sweet potato dug, that romantic notion has become a little more of a reality. Recycled jars now house dried herbs, pickled vegetables or jam made from the gardens offerings. We acknowledge at each meal which part of it has come from our own garden, or been traded with like minded friends and neighbors. Cohen may ask, "is this tomato from the garden?" Or I will say for the one hundredth time, "Tinned beetroot has nothing on home grown pickled beets." The sense of satisfaction is difficult to explain to the uninitiated. 

Another long held dream of mine has been to grow enough strawberries to make jam. (In old Mason jars, of course.) And though I planted a dozen strawberry plants last year, and we were at times getting a punnets worth each day, the jam did not eventuate. Particularly not with a toddler who knew only too well how to pick them himself. The profusion of strawberry runners in the garden currently may make jam a more likely prospect this year, but in the meantime I have found a seemingly fail safe alternative. Rosellas. Cheap to buy - four seedlings for $4, easy to grow in Queensland - I didn't use any chemicals or fertiliser, and tart prior to cooking - which discourages little people from stealing and eating them all. Yesterday I harvested my first fruit off the three remaining shrubs (hubby pulled the fourth seedling out, thinking it was a weed:) and made jam using this recipe. And I must say, Rosellas produce a beautiful jam. It looks, smells and tastes wonderful. Sort of plum flavored and deep red. The fruit becomes soft and translucent.

 

The first flush of Rosellas from my three plants

A cup of tea and a lot of peeling - removing the calyx from the seed

The seeds are saved, covered in water and simmered for 20 minutes to remove the pectin, which helps the jam set

The seeds once the pectin is removed

The calyxs, an apple and the pectin water, ready to be simmered until soft, then have the sugar added

Five jars of beautiful jam in recycled bottles

The same sweet potatoes from three weeks ago, and some Rosellas drying on the windowsill for the purpose of making tea

There are plenty more fruit ripening on the bushes, so I intend to try my hand at Rosella cordial and flowers in syrup next. 

Do you have a similar dream of growing herbs or fruit and vegetables?
Have you ever grown or eaten Rosella before? Any recipe suggestions?
What's happening in your garden at the moment?

The heart of the home

-

Bacon mushroom and cheese on the left, smoked salmon, mushroom, olives and capers, without cheese, on the right (I'm lactose intolerant)

Chicken burgers with home made chips and pickled home grown beetroot

Potato, carrot, sweet potato and rosemary from the garden, with a little olive oil, ready for roasting

One meat and vegetable pie, one vegetarian pie (we freeze the leftovers for quick lunches and dinners)

Muffin mini-pizzas with the left over salmon, olives and capers from the pizza

Parsnip, tomato, carrot, lentil and butter bean soup


Salmon, cou cous and baby spinach leaves with balsamic vinegar

Dairy free banana cake, with eggs from our neighbour

A little bit of what has been happening in my kitchen lately. I'm always trying to find a balance between taste, health, budget, luxuries, seasonal, organic, allergies and time. I write a meal plan each week and we have a budget of $150 for groceries and consumables (like toilet paper, aluminium foil, and dish washing liquid.) Using cloth nappies and making my own laundry liquid have certainly helped stretch our budget further. As has buying in bulk and keeping a store cupboard down stairs. My sister has just copied out some of her favourite recipes for me to try this week.

What have you been cooking lately?

+

In the garden...

The first tomatoes are appearing

The lettuce are ready to be picked as needed

The watermelon vine creeps on

The corn grow taller

The potato is in flower

More basil, awaiting more pesto making

Purple beans climb

Several snow peas are ready for picking each day

The weeds are taking advantage of my pregnant tummy's desire not to allow me to bend over.

More lettuce and pea seeds have been planted. 

Carrot and celery seeds are ready to go in this weekend.

What's growing in your garden?

+

Basil. It is the one herb that thrives wherever we live. Or perhaps, the one herb I'm yet to kill. Our first basil came without fanfare by way of a small potted plant from the supermarket. Unlike the other herbs purchased at the same time, it survived it's time on the window ledge - which Dave calls my ledge of death - and was planted out in a pot and eventually into our garden. We have never been short of basil for pizza or pasta since.

Recently, I accidentally grew several basil plants from seeds, in a pile of dirt Dave had put aside for a project. I'd tossed the picked seed heads onto the pile without a second thought. Totally neglected, those basil grew quickly with all the rain we've had lately. This weekend Dave started and has almost finished building a retaining wall and that pile of dirt is about to be called into use. Thus, I picked my wild basil and made basil pesto for the first time, using a mortar and pestle. Enough to refrigerate for the week and more in the freezer (the recipe is the same, minus the parmesan.)

Tonight I am looking forward to admiring our finished retaining wall, making fresh pasta to accompany the pesto and a salad with lettuce picked straight from the garden.

What have you been making, baking or cooking this weekend?

+

Hello Spring. 

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post. They made me smile so much. It's so encouraging to be reminded that the tiredness will end (and hopefully soon.) I'm loving my little baby bump and amazed at how different things seem the second time around.

I have been noticing Spring all around me, the colours, growth and change. This season I am looking forward to watching this little bundle grow and kick as his/her older brother grows too - new teeth, so much taller and so many more words! I'm also looking forward to getting the house renovations to the stage that we can move in and start settling in and enjoying our new family home. But more immediately, I am looking forward to my sister's wedding and time spent celebrating with family and friends. Not long to go now!

I will also be taking your advice and concentrating on couch craft this season, though I do have some new designs I'd love to work on for the shop once my energy levels rise. Thanks to all those who have made purchases lately too. The 'Away with the clouds' earrings and 'Rick rack' rings are still the most popular and I love imagining my crafty clients out there wearing my handmade pieces.

What are you looking forward to this season?