Strawberry guava jam

One of my favourite things in this world is jam on toast with a nice cup of tea (did that sentence make me sound 100 years old!!).  But it’s true, I do love jam. Despite the fact that there are so many wonderful jams available today, I still enjoy making jam from fresh fruit.

For this jam I have used strawberry guava from my very own tree. It’s only a small tree in a pot, but this year it produced enough fruit for a few small jars of jam. My boys picked the fruit for me, and I’m happy to say only a few got squashed into the ground during the process.

Jam Basics

Jams are pretty simple to make and are basically fruit, sugar, and water. Most recipes online are for big batches of fruit, and whilst that’s lovely if you like to make lots or give some to friends or family, I usually do small batches. I had about 450g of strawberry guava fruit, so I added about 350g of sugar, and covered it with water. Most recipes say equal parts of fruit to sugar, but this is too sweet for my palate, and I always reduce the amount of sugar.

And I cheat – I add pectin to jam just to make sure it sets. Especially with the strawberry guava, because I had no idea how much pectin the fruit contains.  Many recipes combine other fruit – e.g. apple with strawberry guava, as apple contains enough pectin to set jam. Feel free to do this, I find it easier to keep some jamsetta (pectin available from my local supermarket) and add some of it.

Method

Simply chuck it all in a large saucepan and then bring the fruit mixture to the boil. Cook it out for an hour or so for a small batch, and longer for bigger batches. The colour changes and the mixture gets thicker as it cooks. To test if it’s done, put a teaspoon of mixture onto a small plate, wait one minute, and then drag your finger through it. If it’s firm and you can see the line still, then it’s set. If it’s still liquid and the line disappears, you need to keep cooking it. If you’ve already been cooking it for ages and this happens, you might need to add some pectin.

Preserving

Get as many jars as you think you need and then wash both the jars and lids in hot soapy water, and then dry them out in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Then hot fill – this means hot substances go into hot containers. So when the jam is nearly done, get your jars into the oven, and pull them out, give them a few minutes to cool slightly so you can handle them, and add the jam while it’s still hot.

These steps not only stop you from getting food poisoning (pretty important in itself!), but also make sure your jam doesn’t grow mould in it – that’s if you keep it. It seems to run out pretty quickly in my household!

Jam has heaps of uses, but I think I’m off to make some scones with jam and a nice cup of tea…