How to make jam

Everyone has known the taste of jam since childhood. Our grandmothers stocked up on it for future use so that they could enjoy the sweet delicacy on cold winter evenings. But does everyone know how to cook it correctly?

How to make jam correctly

Jam in winter is a piece of summer in a jar. How nice it is to open a jar of jam on frosty winter evenings and remember the warmth and sun. The right jam looks very beautiful. Berries or pieces of ripe fruit are evenly distributed in the thick transparent syrup. Although some craftsmen can cook tasty and healthy treat from zucchini, carrots or chestnuts. There’s a lot going on here, but there are still general rules when cooking “summer in a jar.”

1. First of all, you need to take a serious approach to selecting fruits for jam. Give preference to berries grown in your area. This reduces the risk of preserving harmful chemicals for the winter instead of healthy fruits. Slightly unripe fruits are best suited for jam. If you take overripe ones, there is a risk of getting an incomprehensible mess. It will also not have a positive effect on the beauty and taste of the product if you use raw materials with signs of spoilage - rot spots, damage from birds or insects, wrinkled sides.
2. The correct utensils are very important in this matter. A copper, shallow basin is best suited. Make sure that there are no rust spots or green deposits on the dishes. Enameled dishes are not suitable for the simple reason that most often everything in them burns. Which, of course, will ruin the taste of the finished product.
3. Before you start cooking, you need to carefully sort the fruits. Remove leaves, bruised berries, seeds and stalks. It is also good to rinse everything in clean water.
4. Properly prepared syrup is the most important thing in preparing this delicacy. The syrup is prepared like this: take an amount of sugar equal to the weight of the berries. If there are 3 kg of raw materials, then add 3 kg of sugar too. Plus for every kilogram of sand you need to add 200 g of water. Mix everything and bring to a boil over low heat. A good syrup will flow slowly from the spoon in a stream.
5. After boiling, pour the berries into the syrup. You can, on the contrary, pour syrup into jars with already arranged berries and boil the whole mass.

When cooking, proportions must be observed. If you add less sugar than according to the recipe, there is a risk that the jam will ferment. It should be packaged in glass jars with tin lids. To prevent the jam from becoming moldy, the jars must be dry and thoroughly washed. Also, the storage area for rolled up cans should also be dry and well ventilated.

How to cook jam for five minutes

As the name implies, this method is fast, easy and allows you to preserve the maximum amount of nutrients in berries and fruits.

To prepare it in a quick way, the berries must be washed, sorted from twigs, seeds and dried, then transferred to a deep basin and covered with sugar, mixed and left for several hours so that the berries or fruits give juice. Then put it on the stove and, stirring, wait until it boils. After this, cook for another 5 minutes. If the jam turns out liquid, boil again. You can also add a little citric acid if the finished jam turns out cloying. Then mix thoroughly and boil again.

You can add spices to the jam. For example, apples and pears pair well with cinnamon. Orange - with cloves and cardamom.

How to make apple jam

When making apple jam:

1. Wash the fruits, cut into pieces, removing the middle. For especially delicate apple jam, the fruits can be grated on a coarse grater, after removing the peel.
2. Make sugar syrup by mixing sugar and water in the proportion of 1 kilogram of sugar to 200 ml of water. Pour over the apples. Cook over high heat until the syrup thickens.
3. Or sprinkle chopped apples with granulated sugar and leave for a couple of hours. Then bring the mixture to a boil.
4. Once the syrup is ready, add the apple pulp and cook over high heat for 5 minutes. Then reduce and cook for another 5 minutes.
5. Pour into jars and seal with a tin lid.

If the jam is liquid - what to do?

The easiest way to thicken jam is to add gelatin or agar-agar to it. Also for this purpose, you can add grated apple pulp, currants, lemon juice or orange zest to the jam. These pectin-containing natural products will not only give the desired thickness to the jam, but will also add zest to its taste.

To prevent the jam from turning out too liquid in the future, pay attention to the quality of the berries. Raw materials collected in rainy weather become excessively juicy. And therefore, it will take more time to digest the excess liquid. The same goes for freshly washed berries. Let the water drain before adding the raw materials to the bowl.

Tips if the jam is very liquid:

1. Don't forget to remove the foam.
2. Do not use a pan to cook this delicacy - dishes with low walls will help excess moisture evaporate faster.
3. Do not keep the product on fire for 3 hours in a row. It is better to cook it in 3 stages. Boil the raw material, keep it on the fire for 15 minutes. Then turn off the stove and cool the delicacy. Repeat 2 more times.

Mold on jam, what to do

If mold is found after opening the jar, you can simply remove it and eat the jam, since mold does not penetrate inside. You can also boil moldy jam with sugar, at the rate of 100 g of sand per 1 kg of jam. Keep on fire for 5-7 minutes. There is no point in making this kind of jam again. Better get it soon eat.

Mold can occur if:

1. The jam is poorly cooked.
2. Didn't add enough sugar.
3. The jars were capped while still hot. When twisting still hot jars of jam, condensation forms. And excess moisture is mold's best friend.
4. The jars were poorly washed or not sterilized.
5. The finished product was stored in a humid area with poor air circulation.

If the jam has fermented

• Fermented jam can be boiled with sugar and placed in jars. Calculation: 100 g of granulated sugar per 1 kg of jam.
• Add water to it and cook compote. Keep in mind that in this case the raw materials should not smell strongly of wine.
• Add as a filling to pie. When heated in the stove, all formed alcohol compounds will disintegrate.
• Make homemade liqueur from fermented jam. Place the “suspicious” cans closer to the battery. The bacteria will do their job themselves. It is better to remove the lid and tie the neck of the jar with gauze folded in 1 layer. Typically, the active fermentation process takes 2-3 days. And about 2-3 more weeks for the product to ripen. The readiness of the liqueur can be determined by the absence of bubbles and the lightening of the infusion.

There is also a situation where the jam, on the contrary, becomes sugared. This happens because the recipe was violated during cooking and a little more sugar was added than it should have been. You can solve this problem by simply placing the jars in warm water and heating the water until it boils. The sugar will dissolve. To avoid this in the future, it is recommended to add a little lemon juice or acid to each jar.