Today was my first jam making session this year. I know, it is only the middle of March but I had an idea and it worked out very well. Last year during one of our rare visits to Mike and Nicky in the Lakes I picked a huge box of plums. Mike’s tree was so fully laden that a large branch just snapped, the weight of the fruit brought it down. I couldn’t just leave the plums there, they were ready to be harvested anyway so I picked as many as I could. When I returned home I halved them and bottled them in Kilner jars, without any water or sugar. They kept their colour perfectly but I had just too many and on the other hand was running out of jam. After a little research I decided it was worth trying to make the jam using Certo, liquid pectin.

The beauty of making jam this way is that it doesn’t have to be boiled for a long time, in this case only ten minutes.

The colour of this jam is perfect, it made 12 jars. It should keep us going until the raspberries start and then the strawberries and…..