MAKING JAM

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21573, 8 February 1940, Page 10

MAKING JAM

SOME HINTS WELL WORTH NOTING

Do you and your family appreciate home-made jam? If so, here are some practical hints and rules for your guidance:— J. Usually, a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit; less, if not needed to keep for a very long period, as many jams are over-sweet. 2. Stone fruit should have threequarters of a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit. 3. Fruit that is really juicy does not need water; hard kinds, or if the season has been very dry and the fruit is poor, need from half to a gill of water.

4. Crack some of the stones from plums, etc., and add the kernels to the jam. T. Raspberry and cherry jams are improved if a gill of red currant juice is added to each pound of fruit. 6. To preserve the colour and shape of fruit, boil the sugar with the water first, then add the fruit.

7. Boil jam steadily and quickly. 8. Skim well. Have the pan barely three-parts full. 9. When the jam seems thick and reduced in quantity, pour some on a saucer, cool it, and if it jellies it is boiled enough. During this test keep the pan off the fire. Gather the fruit in on a fine dry day and early in the morning before the sun is hot. If you have to buy the fruit, select that which Is dry, ripe and sound. Damp or over-ripe fruit will make jam ferment or turn mouldy. See the fruit is not over-ripe for another reason; once the stage of perfection Is reached the pectose, a substance which jellies the jam, lessens in quality and quantity. It Is on the amount of pectose present in fruit—that the quality of the iam iellv or marmalade depends.