Chef Thomas
Apple Chutney
A spiced autumn chutney made from a glut of apples and a quiet afternoon, simmered down until the kitchen smells of October and the jars line up on the counter like a small, useful insurance policy.
Culinary Explorer
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Strawberry Jam
Created by Chef Thomas
A small batch of June strawberry jam, made the way it's always been made: ripe fruit, sugar, lemon, a rolling boil, and a cold saucer to tell you when it's done.
Sauces & Condiments
British
Make Ahead
Batch Cooking
20 min
Active Time
25 min cook•45 min total
YieldApproximately 4 x 340g jars
There's a week in June, sometimes two if you're lucky, when the strawberries at the market arrive in trays still warm from the field and smelling of nothing else. Not the pale, hard things you can get all year. The proper ones. Small, deep red right through, fragrant before you've even lifted the punnet. That's the week for jam. Miss it and you wait another year.
I make this every June without fail. A kilo of strawberries, a bag of jam sugar, the juice of a lemon, and an afternoon that doesn't need to be anywhere. The kitchen smells of warm fruit and hot sugar for an hour, and at the end of it there are four jars on the worktop catching the light like stained glass. A few go in the cupboard for winter. One goes to a neighbour. One gets opened the next morning on hot toast with cold butter, which is, for my money, one of the better reasons to be alive in summer.
This isn't difficult. Jam-making has acquired a reputation for being fussy and technical, and it isn't. The only thing you need to learn is the wrinkle test, and the saucer will teach you that in about ten seconds. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. The fruit will tell you what it needs.
I wrote it down in the notebook the first June I made it: "Strawberries. Sugar. Lemon. Eight minutes hard. The saucer knows." Twenty years on, I haven't found anything to add.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
ripe English strawberries
Quantity
1kg
hulled, larger ones halved
jam sugar (with added pectin)
Quantity
800g
lemon
Quantity
1 large
juiced
unsalted butter (optional)
Quantity
small knob
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| ripe English strawberrieshulled, larger ones halved | 1kg |
| jam sugar (with added pectin) | 800g |
| lemonjuiced | 1 large |
| unsalted butter (optional) | small knob |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide, heavy-bottomed preserving pan or large saucepan
- •Wooden spoon
- •4 x 340g jam jars with lids
- •Small saucers (chilled in the freezer)
- •Jam funnel (helpful but not essential)
- •Ladle
Instructions
- 1
Macerate the fruit
Tip the hulled strawberries into a wide, heavy-bottomed pan. Halve any that are larger than a walnut, leave the smaller ones whole. Pour the sugar over the top and squeeze the lemon juice in after it. Stir gently with a wooden spoon, then leave it alone for an hour or so. The sugar will draw the juice out of the berries and the bottom of the pan will pool red. This is the moment the jam begins.
Use the freshest strawberries you can carry home from the market. June or early July, ripe but not collapsing. Supermarket strawberries in February will not make jam. They will make pink water with regret in it. - 2
Prepare the jars and a cold saucer
While the fruit macerates, wash four jam jars and their lids in hot soapy water, rinse well, then put them upside down in a low oven (140C) to dry and sterilise. They want to be properly hot when the jam goes in. Put two or three small saucers in the freezer. You'll need them for the wrinkle test.
- 3
Bring to a rolling boil
Set the pan over a low heat and stir gently until every grain of sugar has dissolved. Run the spoon along the bottom of the pan and you should feel nothing gritty. This matters. Sugar that hasn't dissolved will crystallise in the jar. Once it's smooth, turn the heat up high and bring the jam to a proper rolling boil. Not a polite simmer. A loud, foaming, can't-stir-it-down boil. Set a timer for eight minutes and let it go.
If foam builds up on the surface, drop in a small knob of butter at the end. It dissolves the foam without changing the taste. An old trick worth knowing. - 4
The wrinkle test
After eight minutes of hard boiling, take the pan off the heat and fetch a cold saucer from the freezer. Drop a teaspoon of jam onto the saucer and leave it for thirty seconds. Push it with your fingertip. If the surface wrinkles like the skin on a custard, it's done. If it slides about like syrup, put the pan back on the heat for another two minutes and try again with a fresh cold saucer. Trust the saucer, not the clock. Every batch behaves a little differently depending on how ripe the fruit was.
- 5
Rest and pot
Once it's set, take the pan off the heat and leave the jam to settle for ten minutes. This stops the strawberries from all floating to the top of the jar like a regretful raft. Stir gently once, then ladle into the hot jars, filling almost to the brim. Seal the lids while everything is still hot. You should hear them ping as they cool, which is the sound of a proper seal and one of the more satisfying noises a kitchen makes.
Chef Tips
- •Buy your strawberries from somewhere you trust, and buy them at their peak. Slightly underripe fruit has more pectin and sets more readily, but slightly overripe fruit tastes of more. A mix of the two is ideal. The market decides.
- •Jam sugar (with added pectin) is the easiest way to a reliable set with strawberries, which are naturally low in pectin. You can use ordinary granulated and lean harder on the lemon juice, but the first few times, give yourself the kindness of jam sugar. You can graduate later.
- •Don't double the recipe. A wide pan and a smaller batch boils faster, sets cleaner, and tastes brighter. Big batches stew. If you want eight jars, make two batches back to back. Your jam will thank you.
- •On hot buttered toast is the obvious answer, and the right one. But it's also wonderful spooned over thick yoghurt for breakfast, stirred into the cream of a Victoria sponge, or eaten straight from the jar with a teaspoon when no one is looking.
Advance Preparation
- •Sealed properly and stored in a cool, dark cupboard, the jam keeps for up to a year. Once opened, refrigerate and eat within a month.
- •The fruit can be hulled and mixed with the sugar the night before and left in the fridge to macerate slowly. The jam is, if anything, better for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 20g)
Calories
50 calories
Total Fat
0 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
0 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
1 mg
Total Carbohydrates
13 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
13 g
Protein
0 g
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