December Food Edition 1 - Apricot Jam

My camera cable has been found, and I have finally been able to download hundreds of pictures off the camera, and write in my blog!

I'm thoroughly enjoying being on holidays for a few weeks over Chrissy and new year, and have been making the most of the time off, making copious amounts of jam, fudge and many other sweet treats.

Our stone fruits are in various stages of ripening, and being eaten by hungry birds. The apricots are always first, so my story will start with apricot jam.

Apricot Jam
This is our third summer living here, and hence my third crack at apricot jam making. Previous years I have shared my fruit, but this year there was less (we haven't been able to water much, as the river pump is out of action, and we have only one house tank)... so I kept it all to myself. I did share the finished product around though of course!

I ended up making 3 big batches over 2 days, using Stephanie Alexander's recipe from Cooks Companion. I managed to get it to set (somewhat) without adding any pectin, just the last few lemons off the tree.

Apricot Jam Recipe
1.5kg apricots, firm-ripe rather than soft,
1 cup water
2 tablespoones lemon juice
1.5kg sugar

Wash, halve or quarter the fruit and remove stones (don't throw them away...)
Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celcius.
Put the apricot stones inside a teatowel and crack them open with a meat mallet (probably a nut cracker would do the job, but I don't have room for one in my kitchen!) Extract the kernels and set aside. Discard all the debris, making sure that none of the sharp shell falls into the kernels - they would really hurt to crunch into!

Put water, fruit and lemon juice into non reactive saucepan, bring slowly to boil. Simmer about 20 mins, or longer if you like your jam less chunky. Meanwhile put sugar into oven on a tray and warm it to hand-hot in the oven. (A note here, I find the 160 deg oven is simply too hot to do the job [my hand-hot is a lot less that 160] and a bit of a waste of energy, next time i'll just put the oven on as low as possible and bring it to hand-hot). Suit yourself. Add warmed sugar and reserved kernels to pan, stirring until sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly for about 15 mins or until setting stage. Pop into hot, sterilised jars including the kernels.

Apricot Kernel peeking out from hard shell

Kernels

 




The finished product - notice my special birthday gift in action - HHC labels from my awesome friend Cathy!

I hope you enjoy the recipe, and those of you who received a jar under the Christmas tree on Sunday, please let me know what you think!

Coming up next... Peppermint and Chocolate Fudge...!