Easy to make and without any preservatives, this home made jams are delicious and delightful in taste. You can add 1/2 – 1 teaspoon beetroot juice for natural red color in case you want to skip artificial colors and no it wouldn’t change the taste . In case you do not want to add any colors, its ok, it will be nice golden colored jam. Unlike the store brought jams, this indeed has real fruity flavor.
I would recommend making jams at home as they are far better in taste and good than store brought jams
Preparation time : 5 mins Cooking time: 25 mins, Total time: 30 mins
Servings : 8
Ingredients:
- 1 kg apples
- 1/2 kg sugar – adjust quantity
- 1.5 cups water
- Lemon Juice 1/2 tbsp Or 1 teaspoon Citric Acid
- 1-2 drops red food coloring – optional
- 1/2 Teaspoon Cinnamon Optional
- 1/4 Teaspoon Nutmeg Optional
Steps to prepare
- Clean apples and slice them. Remove the cores. You can peel them if required. I have made jam keeping peels intact
- Boil apples with water in a pan. Cover and cook over medium heat until apple soften completely
- Mash the apples and strain or puree them. There should be no chunks in the apple left.
- Return apple puree to saucepan
- Add sugar and mix well. In case you like it spiced, you can add cinnamon and nutmeg for additional taste or skip them. Adjust sugar as per taste required
- Bring mixture to boil. Add lemon juice or citric acid. This is important as this will prevent sugar crystallization on cooling. Do not add more else jam will taste sour
- Keeping cooking the mixture until it thickens. Add food colouring if required and mix well.
- To check the doneness, take a bowl filled with ice cubes, take spoonful of liquid and keep the spoon over ice cubes, liquid will cool. Turn spoon sideways, it will not be like syrup and would have jelled onto spoon
- In case it’s still sliding or syrupy, cook further
- Warm and sterilize the jar used for storing jam
- Pour the hot jam into sterilized jar. Do not fill up to rim, leave little space. Seal it tightly
- Place jam bottle in hot water for 10 minutes and then cool completely
- Allow it to set for 10-12 hours before use
- Refrigerate and consume the jam within 3 months
- Now spread this lovely jam over bread scones etc and serve
Cook with Rekha 