Last night we made kiwi jam. Or more accurately kiwi and apple jam. The fruit box we get on a fortnightly basis often comes with a bag of kiwis- when we aren’t alert enough to change our order- but neither of us is much of a kiwi eater. So the solution- jam.
Jam is not the perfect solution, we don’t really eat much of that- but it is a good gift. It is also kind of fun- chemistry in action. The recipe we use is pretty simple:
Kiwi jam
5 kiwis
1 apple
sugar
The sugar is roughly proportional to the fruit- I generally weigh the chopped fruit and then use about the same weight of sugar- which can be adjusted a little down if you don’t want it too sweet. We use jam sugar, with added pectin, but the apple actually contains pectin.
1. Chop the fruit up. If you look carefully, we used more apple than the recipe calls for- we have too many apples as well.
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2. Heat the chopped fruit (about medium heat) in a saucepan, let it simmer away for 20 minutes or so (fruit needs to go soft and squishy) stirring.
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3. Add sugar let it come to the boil and simmer away for a while. It starts to thicken. Don’t forget to keep stirring.
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4. When it gets to the wrinkle stage, put in clean jars. Wow that packs a lot of activity into a single sentence.
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5. Sterilise. I am not going to go into detail about this, that is what the internets is for. If you don’t wish to go through that process (we had a malfunction that meant water leaked into the jar) put your jam in the fridge and eat relatively soon (the next month or so)
Okay- maybe my jam recipe needs some polishing. It is delicious though.
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