Ever since a French-resident
friend gave me some of her home-made apricot jam a few summers ago, I have been
hooked on making jam the French way, with no added water. This involves mixing
the apricots with the sugar and leaving them to stand for between 12 and 18
hours to allow the sugar to draw out the juice, before cooking gently, rather
than with the rapid boil normally used to make jam the British way. The result
is runnier than I had always been used to, but with an intensity of flavour that to me is incomparably better.
Recipe and full method now in a separate page above this post.
Sadly, the cherries that have now ripened all at the same time on our three trees aren’t suitable for jam making – believe me, I've tried! So DH and I just have to eat them by the handful at almost every meal, before the heat pushes them beyond ripeness. I wonder – can one eat too many cherries…..?
Recipe and full method now in a separate page above this post.
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| The upside down sealing method - it really works! |
Sadly, the cherries that have now ripened all at the same time on our three trees aren’t suitable for jam making – believe me, I've tried! So DH and I just have to eat them by the handful at almost every meal, before the heat pushes them beyond ripeness. I wonder – can one eat too many cherries…..?
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| Why are the best always at the top of the tree? |
Obviously the
past couple of weeks have been about a lot more than jam and cherries, but the details will have to wait until the weather breaks.
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| Coeur de pigeon - our yellow cherries |
There is nothing tastier than home-made jam! My mother used to make pots of it each year, & eating her jam is one of my most pleasant childhood memories.
ReplyDeleteBe thankful that you are travelling by car between the UK & France. My eldest sister, who has our mother's jam making skills, tried to bring me a pot of her jam when she visited for a few days last August. Sadly, it was confiscated at Gatwick Airport for exceeding the 100ml liquid rules for cabin baggage Grrrr!
I've always adored making (and eating) jam, hence my choice of a jam-pan as a treat. :-) The French method was enough to make sure it's always packed for each visit.
DeleteI can imagine how cross you were to know a pot of good home-made jam had gone to waste. I know there are good reasons for the rules, but confiscating jam does seem so sad. :-( I now make sure ALL my liquids go in hold luggage.
I cannot but admire your energy Perpetua. I gave up making jam about 8 years ago, and until 18 months ago still had some in my cupboards.
ReplyDeleteEvery year John and I would go fruit picking on farms a few miles out of Aylesbury and then in season, wild blackberry picking in the hedgerows.
He loved jam, I don't, so a good reason for giving up.
That and the fact that all I can successfully do in this dreadful killer heat, is sweat!
Thankfully our kitchen here faces north, Ray, so it's the coolest room in the house in summer. If it weren't, even I would think twice about making jam in a heatwave. I'm glad your last efforts at jam making kept so well. One drawback of the French method is that the results won't automatically keep for years and years as British jam does.
DeleteI'm sorry the hot weather is so hard on you. I think it's much more humid in the UK than where we are. You could try this article on the BBC website on how to sleep in hot weather:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19319499
At first I thought - yes, Perpetua is mad, but then I saw the results and can just imagine how delicious your apricot jam is and will be during the cold winter months. I suspect it is rather nice added to some Greek yogurt.
ReplyDeleteI now wish I had bought a box of apricots home with me, but will keep my eyes open for some in Lidl or Aldi and try your method.
I dare not complain about the weather having spent the whole of the spring bemoaning the lack of warmth. I have spent the last six months with cold feet every night, and now I can't even bare a sheet on me.
I haven't tried it with yoghurt yet, Rosemary, but it's gorgeous with fromage frais! I probably paid more for my apricots than I would have in a few weeks time, but they were in such perfect condition and now is when I had the time to use them. I've put the recipe and method in a separate page on my top bar.
DeleteDon't talk to me about cold feet. I was still taking a hot-water bottle to bed with me for the first week after we arrived here and now it's SO hot. There's a good article on the BBC website about how to get to sleep in hot weather which might help:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19319499
The soft fruit have been absolutely wonderful this year. I like your French way of making jam- must try that. My O/H is diabetic - I found a good recipe on the internet for reduced sugar jam. that was a bit runny, but the taste is delicious
ReplyDeleteMy friends with veg gardens have been telling me the same since we got here, Molly. The weather conditions which have produced such glorious roses were obviously perfect for soft fruit.
DeleteI've put the recipe and method in a separate page on my top bar, but it probably has a bit too much sugar for your OH. The runniness doesn't bother me at all nowadays. It's a small privce to pay for the flavour. :-)
I can see that you will be probably making cherry jam soon.
ReplyDeleteMy DIL makes her apricot jam without water, the very same way. She has so many appricot trees they fall onto the grass. one can only eat so many.
The jam looks really professional in the jars.
enjoy it all.
happy days Perpetua.
val x x
Unfortunately our cherries are too small to stone easily and when I tried making jam with them, it just wouldn't set. No home-made cherry jam for us, Val.
DeleteThe no-water method produces the most wonderful jam. What wouldn't I give for an apricot tree of my own. The jars have all been saved up over years of buying French jam on holiday, though one can also buy them new in the shops here.I had fun filling the ones in the photo. :-)
Mmmmmm, apricot is my favourite jam - and the method you describe sounds wonderful. How lovely to be able to enjoy a taste of summer on into the darker, colder months (assuming it has not all been eaten by then!).
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the cherries too.
I've put the recipe and method in a separate page on my top bar, Catriona, so perhaps you can find a spare hour or two during your sabbatical to try it. :-) I try to make enough to last us all year, but that depends on how many visitors we get!
DeleteI have never made jam but your photos are certainly enticing.
ReplyDeleteHello, Chelliah, and welcome to my blog. Home-made jam is much easier than many people think and it is so well worth the effort. The flavour is wonderful and you know exactly what's in it. :-)
DeleteWatch me turn green!! We love French apricot jam, although we shouldn't eat it, being diabetic. Recipe, please!
ReplyDeleteBut make Cherry Clafoutis with your cherries - I made one today, as BH's brother came down from Rotherham for the day, so we 'killed the fatted calf' (or, rather, salmon, it being too hot for heavy meaty food!) as he hadn't been here since our wedding 14+ years ago. Very successful - it's a pudding I hadn't tried until a few weeks ago, when a recipe appeared in a little booklet by Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall put out by the Daily Telegraph one weekend. It seemed appropriate, as it's a sort of batter mix (but definitely not Yorkshire Pudding batter - much sweeter and eggier) - very nice indeed.
What's the upside-down sealing method - I haven't heard of that?
Sweltering still here - like Ray all I can do is sweat (sorry, 'glow' - accordng to Ian Hay in 'Little Ladyship': 'Horses sweat, gentlemen perspire, ladies merely glow'!!) And, like Rosemary, having worn bedsocks right the way up to the start of this heatwave, I can't bear a sheet over me, and even my chair in the lounge gets too hot.
Recipe and method (including the upside-down sealing technique) now in a separate page on my top bar, Helva.
DeleteI've had cherry clafoutis, but it really needs the big dark ones to work properly. Ours are too small to stone at all easily, so we just eat them as they come from the tree. Anyway, I'm too lazy to do cooked puddings of any description in hot weather. :-) It's fruit of ice-cream for us - or some of the delicious fruit sorbets that French supermarkets sell.
We've been lucky in that the heat has mostly been tempered by a nice north-easterly breeze, though yesterday was VERY sticky. As I mentioned in some earlier replies, there's a good article on the BBC website about how to sleep in hot weather with lots of useful tips from readers, such as ice-cold water in your hot-water bottle:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19319499
You don't have to stone the cherries for my recipe - but it pays to remember that they're still there when you come to eat them! The batter is gorgeous!
DeleteThanks for the tip. If we get tired of eating them raw I'll have a go. :-)
DeleteI'll e-mail the recipe to you now!
DeleteAh, homemade jam! It's the best and so worth the effort. Good for you, Perpetua!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kathy, my sentiments exactly. It's not even very much effort when compared with the results and I really enjoy the whole process.
DeletePerpetua, I have never made jam of any kind, but do appreciate your desire for a jam pan over jewelry as I don't go in for much jewelry or dress-up either. Jeans and tennis shoes work well daily and my wedding band is all I need. But something for my kitchen (like your jam pan/thinking about saving up for a Kitchenaid food processor?), that's another story.
ReplyDeleteBut my friend and I have thought about taking a course in jam/jelly making or just setting up preserves in general...
Oh, you MUST try making preserves some day, Rian, or your pioneer ancestors will be turning in their graves. :-) I've always made jam, even when I had to use an ordinary pan to do so and sometimes make pickles and chutney in the autumn. There's something so satisfying about eating jam you've made yourself and I can promise you it tastes better than all but the most expensive shop-bought kind.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed the post where I preferred a jam-pan to jewellery. If anything it's even truer of me as I get older. :-)
We must be mad...I've been making jam too, Perpetua and it's pretty hot here. Mine has been my favourite green fig, orange and walnut jam - though this year, the green figs were purple inside, so it looks and tastes rather different from last year. Still good though. I did quite a bit of cherry conserve too - a bit runny to be called jam but very French!
ReplyDeleteThe apricots look absolutely delicious and I think it's an excellent idea to make the French-style jam. I like it with taste, rather than solid.
I still envy your jam-pan!
Axxx
It's good to know I have comp[any in my madness. :-) Your fig jam sounds wonderful. I imagine your cherries are the big dark ones? Our red ones are tiny, but very sweet and the yellow ones are bigger but simply don't set at all. So apricot jam à la française it is.
DeleteThe jam-pan is one of my most treasured possessions and I wouldn't be without it. Don't the Spanish have jam-pans? If so, perhaps a BIG hint when your next birthday comes round?
I love apricot jam! My Mum made it the 'old way', but an aunt [by marriage] made her apricot jam the French way [I didn't know until I read your blog that it was French] and it was so much tastier; I followed that method; the jam is delicious on fresh bread and [lashings] butter. Yes, jam making is always a job for summer but the pleasure one receives when admiring the rows of jam make the sweating brow worth it.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, Shirley. This morning I put the jars away in the cupboard until we go back to Wales and felt very pleased with myself at the tempting array. :-)
DeleteThe difference in flavour between jam made this way and the usual British method is amazing, especially for fruit such as raspberries and apricots. I've yet to try it with strawberries as i haven't found them on sale for jam around here. Everyone seems to grow their own and I don't have a veg garden. One day perhaps....
My mouth is watering. It's one of my favourite conundrums on a French holiday: which is better, confiture ou compote d'abricots? Oh dear, one just has to try them both; one with a baguette or croissant and Normandy butter, t'other with plain yogurt. Decisions, decisions. (Slurp...)
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting the recipe: perhaps I will make my own one of these days!
Of course one has to try them both, and I will think of you being forced to make that delicious comparison on your forthcoming holiday in Brittany. :-)
DeleteThe recipe is well worth trying as it can be made in small experimental quantities with lots of fruits. Go on - you know you want to......
I've been known to make jam that way too ... it works wonderfully with damsons. And no, it's impossible to eat too many cherries, unless you eat soooo many that you pop ;)
ReplyDeleteOoo, I hadn't thought of using damsons. Here's hoping our trees at home have a crop this year so I can try it instead of my normal standby of damson cheese. As for the cherries, no popping as yet, though we're working on it.... :-)
DeleteThis is interesting Perpetua. I've never used a recipe for jam but this is the way I make it too. Although I don't leave the fruit to soak in sugar first (which I think I will try next time). I don't like "solid"jam. I prefer it a bit runny because I also like it over yogurt. And I also turn the jars upside down...but I think I must have read somewhere that this was the best way to seal the jars.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you've worked out this method in the same way the French housewives first did, Ayak, by trial and error. Macerating the fruit in the sugar works wonderfully, as it removes the need for any water except for a tiny bit if you use a hard-skinned fruit like blackcurrants. as for the upside-down seal, I'm always amazed it works so well, as it's simplicity itself.
DeleteThere is nothing better than Apricot jam. I made a few pots ( not nearly enough) when we were here in France a few weeks ago. I hadn't heard of the French method, and now feel I must have another go, before the apricots are gone. I don't know what I did differently to the last lot, but it is beautifully runny and the apricot flavour is really full. I also made some strawberry and pear jam which was beautiful. We're back in Caunes and this afternoon will be visiting my favourite roadside fruit seller....I will see what she is selling at bargain prices today, and who knows what flavoured jam will emerge from the kitchen....despite the heat. Jx
ReplyDeleteRunny and full-flavoured is definitely the name of the game where my apricot jam is concerned. Unfortunately I've run out of jam-jars, so can't make any more until we get back to Wales, otherwise I'd be sorely tempted to try your pear and strawberry which sounds wonderful. At least I don't pass any roadside fruit-sellers to put more temptation in my way. :-) Have fun and do let me know what you make.
DeleteSadly the fruit has been less plentiful for some reason in our area of Italy this year so lots of figs and apples, but very few apricots, plums or peaches on the trees on our land. Your jam will be a very welcome addition to the breakfast table when you get back to the UK so we would be doing the same with a surplus of apricots as well as enjoying them fresh if we were travelling by car.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like us last year, Linda, when we had no cherries or plums at all. This year our trees are dripping with cherries which have ripened very late, yet friends across the valley have none again. Very odd. It's a shame to miss a harvest like this, so here's hoping things are back to normal for you next year, so that you too can have your winter supply of apricot jam.
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteAs my grandfather would say, "my teeth are watering"! Apricot jam is just one of those perennial favourites. Am a bit of a cherry fiend and have not yet found any overdose point... So think you're safe!! Have you tried simply preserving them whole in syrup a la the canned varieties? Most folk don't mind cherries with pits when served with fine curd, or ice cream, or custard.
I have a vague memory of picking wild cherries in Scotland once and granny boiled them, left them to cool, then drained and squashed them through muslin. Removing the pits, the remaining pulp was re-added to the liquid and this in turn was boiled (think with apple or rhubarb) into a jam. Something to experiment!
We all, I am sure, look forward to your updates of other doings in France. Meanwhile, make... jam... while the sun shines!*> YAM xxx
Does anyone not like apricot jam, I wonder? Thanks for the reassurance re cherry consumption. That's good to know. :-) To be honest our cherries are too small to be worth preserving (even if I had any jars left) and unfortunately I don't have any other fruit ready to harvest to cook them with. So raw it is!
DeleteLooking at the weather forecast there may be the odd thunderstorm coming to make indoor activities preferable, so more posts will be forthcoming.....
I haven't made jam for a very long time. I'll have to look at the French Method on your blog. The thought of homemade jam of any kind is appealing - I depend on friends to bring it when I invite them for dinner! The best sort of bread and butter gift!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great dinner gift. I must try that.
DeleteI love making jam and can count on the fingers of one hand the number of jars of jam I've bought since I got my jam-pan. The French method can be used to make small quantities, so do try it some time. I think you will enjoy the result.
My mouth is watering, Perpetua.
ReplyDeleteWe have had the best apricots this summer; the smaller ones have been sublime and the organic ones, for some odd reason, cheaper. I'm in apricot heaven. Well, almost apricot heaven. When I've made the jam, that will be the proof. What a wonderful, summery post.
It is horribly hot, humid, with heat alerts here. No day for jam making - but, perfect one for catching up my blogging friends.
As soon as your hot weather lets up, you must try this method, Penny. It would be a crime to have a glut of wonderful apricots and not make jam. I'd give my eye teeth for apricot trees in the garden or even in the neighbourhood. :-)
DeleteI can imagine that when you say it's horribly hot you're enduring temperatures much higher than we are. Here it's been in the lower 80s by afternoon, which is hot for us, but probably would probably seem relatively cool in the Mid-West in July. Srttay cool indoors until it changes.
Hi Big Sis - It all sounds delicious - must tell my friend's jam making DH about the upside down sealing method.
ReplyDeleteMy DH and the rest of his medieval band will have just arrived in Azincourt for the reenactment this weekend. Last weekend, because of the heat, history had to be rewritten at the Battle of Tewkesbury - battle cut short and full armour abandoned!
I hope this weather lasts for a while (but a bit cooler at night would be welcome) for the benefit of English kids breaking up for their summer holidays tomorrow.
If you think back to your last visit a couple of years ago, you'd have had my French-style jam for breakfast, as I had a cupboard full of it, thanks to a friend with a glut of raspberries and blackcurrants. It's worth trying. :-)
DeleteI've just checked the Meteo France website for Azincourt and the forecast for the weekend is good - mostly sunny and mid to upper 20s, ideal for their activities and certainly less oppressive than Tewkesbury.
I gather it's been very hot and humid in Yorkshire too, but sadly the elder grandsons have to wait until next Tuesday for their end of term. It's hard to be stuck in school in this weather and perhaps have it break when you're finally on holiday. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that we have decent weather for DD's visit in August.
It's a super method...and ideal for here where getting a proper rolling boil is a problem.
ReplyDeleteHaving arrived in France I see what you mean about the heat!
Glad you've arrived safely and yes, it ain't 'alf 'ot, Mum. ;-)
DeleteI really love the French method, both for its ease and for the fantastic results. I've never had so many compliments on my jam before.
I just love those yellow cherries, Perpetua. I've never seen cherries that color. And I'm really delighted to have the recipe for the French version of the apricot jam. Your jars simply look beautiful, and I'd love to try something a little different. I wish I could access the apricots from a tree of my own, but I may be able to canvass my friends to find out if someone has some to spare. I will do some detective work. I'm so glad you're enjoying your time this summer...and a little warmth! :-) I hope the heat isn't too intense, but after your cold, wet winter I'm sure there is some pleasure in the sunshine! :-)
ReplyDeleteNeither had we, Debra. they look like very small plums. :-)
DeleteFrench jam jars add the final touch to the jam and I like them for their wide necks and ease of filling - not so many sticky jars to wipe clean. You could test out the recipe with just a couple of pounds of apricots if you can find a friend with a glut this year.
The weather is certainly hot and getting hotter over the weekend, but I won't complain. It's so lovely to have one bright, sunny day after another after such a long cold and grey winter and spring. :-)
Ahh that sounds a lovely recipe. I haven't made jam for ages but it seems to be very popular at the moment, so I might just have to have a go - don't want to be left behind on this. Hope you're enjoying France. We arrived back last Sunday and had a fabulous time with friends. The weather was very hot indeed.
ReplyDeletePatricia x
It's always been popular in our household, Patricia. :-) When I was at home with the children when they were very small I even had a sign up at the gate advertising my home-made jam, and earned myself a bit of pocket money. I probably wouldn't be allowed to do that nowadays.... Do try the recipe, as the flavour is so much more intense and fruity than most commercial jam.
DeleteGlad you enjoyed your French holiday. it's still very hot here and I've just come in from the garden for a cup of tea and a cool-down. :-)
I love the soft set French jam and will definitely be taking a look at your recipe. Apricot is my absolute favourite, followed by blackberry, followed by damson, followed by......
ReplyDeleteI was chez nous last week when it was so, so hot. But I never once allowed myself to grumble about it as my previous three holidays were a wash-out and the cooler weather in the UK will be back all too soon. So I just "glowed" and enjoyed it !!
Glad the weather was kind to you this time, Jean. You've been very unlucky so far this year.
DeleteThe reason we're in Normandy, rather than south of the Loire, is that neither of us copes well with prolonged heat. This means that making jam with the thermometer stuck in the lower 30s was a bit of an endurance test, but so worth the effort. The temperature is now back in the 20s and DH and I are happy again. :-)