Homemade Strawberry Vanilla Jam

I am embarrassed to mention that I made this jam because I left a punnet of strawberries sitting in the fridge for too long. They turned soft due to the dehydrating effect of refrigeration and was too icky to eat on its own. 

Note though, they were not mouldy. This recipe can be made using fresh, prime strawberries. 

This recipe starting from washing and hulling to boiling the strawberries only took me 30 minutes.

So let's get jamming!

Strawberry Jam

Ingredients:

454g strawberries, hull and cut into chunks 

20g sugar 

1/2 vanilla pod, split with seeds scrapped out or 2 tsp vanilla extract (if you are using extract, add it in with the lemon juice)

2 tsp lemon juice, add when the sauce pan is removed from heat

Steps to jamming:

• Into a sauce pan, place strawberries, sugar and scrapped vanilla seeds + pod.
• Cook the mixture on medium-high heat, stir constantly but gently.
• Soon the strawberries will release its juices and it will look as though you are boiling strawberry soup but it will smell divine.
• Let the mixture boil and thicken. Take note to skim the white foam formed on the surface of the boiling mixture. 
• Boil for 15 min or until thickened. Remove sauce pan from heat and stir in the lemon juice. Do not boil the lemon juice with the mixture because it will give a bitter taste to the jam. Pour the strawberry jam into a clean and sterilized glass bottle. 
• The jam can be kept in the refrigerator up to 2 weeks.

The berries do release a lot of its juices and this can be use to drizzle over ice cream, fruit salad or added to a sangria.

I like the idea of making my own jam. I get to control the sweetness and the size of the fruit pieces that goes into it. I like my jam chunky as you can see. 

The recipe for the cranberry scones will be coming right up. This recipe also took me only 30 minutes to make and it uses only 1 mixing bowl.

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