A way to spend a Sunday... pick your own fruit and making jam!

Afternoon all,

I have been meaning to write this post for a week or so but had not gotten chance to take pictures of the final product!  A couple of weekends ago we went to Parkside Farm in Enfield to pick enough berries to make some jam, it's been perfect weather for it, sunny but not baking hot that our fruit went mushy on the way home!

Hubby picking fruit!

Views across the POY fields

Me forraging for the good ones!

Such a lovely day

I had originally wanted to make raspberry jam as their website said they had a plentiful crop, however when we got there they also had blackberries, red currants and black currants, so we picked a mixture so that we could make Summer Fruit jam.

Here's how we did it...

Ingredients:

1kg of fruit
Juice of 1 lemon
1kg of jam sugar

Method:

1. Put a small plate in the freezer (this is for testing your jam)
2. Sterilize your jars by putting them through the hot cycle in your dishwasher (no detergent)
3. Tip half the fruit and the lemon juice into a pan and mush up using a potato masher, once mashed heat on a medium heat for 5 minutes
4. Pour mashed fruit through a seive so all the juice and pulp goes through, leaving you with a seed mixture
5. Add the pulp/juice back to the pan and combine with the sugar
6. Once combined heat gently and add the remaining fruit and bring to the boil.  Allow to boil for 5 minutes 
7. Drop a teaspoon amount onto the chilled plate and if it wrinkles and feels like jam consistency then it's ready.  If you like your thicker, return to the heat and boil for a few minutes longer.

And this is the finished result.......

Homemade mixed summer berry jam

It sure tastes yummy!!

To make the labels I used a free designer called Jam Labelizer, there are a handful of different designs you can choose from.

We've also made red currant jelly and chilli jam so I will blog about those another day.

Until next time...

Amanda xx