#5 Grandma's Classics: Black Current & Black Cherry Jam

When Grandma cooks jam, she will make her choice of fruit dependent on what special fruits are in season, the lushest offers at the farmer's market, and on cases of uncontrollable fruit abundance in the neighbours' gardens. She quickly cooks 2 or 3 jars between her usual cooking, gardening and housework.  The black fruit jam however is one of her true classics.

The fruit/ sugar ratio is always the same: fruit to sugar, 2:1.  The rest is stirring. First hot, while simmering, then cold to enjoy the reliable process of thickening.

Today she combined

250g black currants

250g black and sweet cherries, pitted

250g sugar.

Click here for a more detailed description of the cooking process.

Rose Jam

inspiration and recipe by  CHLOE' SS 2013 and Marmellata di rose

The fact that the pictures of the Chloe dress and the marmellata di rose were so beautiful, the recipe so simple and my own roses in full bloom made me wish to loose not a second to try it (picturing the beautiful images my camera would take in front of my inner eye). First thing in the morning I went out to pick a bowl full of the petals of my mozart rose.

Then I mixed 200g rose petals with the juice of half a lemon and 200g sugar for a minute with my hands.
In the meantime I heated the water with the other 300g sugar and poured in the mixture of roses. After I brought it  to a boil, I reduced the heat and let the mixture simmer for another 40 minutes.

Then I took the jam from the heat and stirred it gently with a wooden spoon for 10 minutes as I had learned from my grandma. So you can always be sure that the jam thickens without using gelatine or additional pectine.

I recommend to try it with ciabatta and fresh goat cheese, as suggested in the original recipe. 

raspberry strawberry jam the way my grandma taught me to cook it

"Take  any amount of fruit (1kg maximum at a time), and half as much sugar. Put fruit and sugar in a pot and  from now on you only need patience and the right method" my grandma said. She never allowed gelatine enriched sugar in her kitchen, by no means.

Well, the secret was in the right method, which meant you had to spend 30 tiring minutes, a wooden spoon in hand, stirring  through the hot mixture in an uncountable number of eights. 15 minutes while simmering on the hotplate, 15 minutes while set to rest on the cool surface of the workplace. 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 ... . An endless row of  tiring eights.

To keep tiredness within a limit it's a good idea to sit down next to the pot during the whole process. This way you only will suffer from arm tiredness... But it's worth the effort. Even when the finished jam sometimes comes out a bit runny  - always depending on the fruit's natural content of pectin, the flavour is unbeatable pure and fruity.

When you prepare jam from only 500g fruit/ 250g sugar, the stirring time decreases to 20 minutes.