Chunky strawberry jam without added pectin
Jam from strawberries left in sugar for two hours to release their juice, then boiled briefly and hard, so they keep their colour and their pieces. Strawberries are low in pectin, and lemon supplies the acid that pectin needs to set — so the jam reaches a soft set without a packet. Half a kilo of sugar per kilo of fruit.
Your own work in that: 55 min.
- Strawberries releasing juice 120 min
- Cooking 30 min
- Jars 25 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneCover the strawberries with sugar
Wash and hull the strawberries, halve the large ones. In a big bowl mix with the sugar and lemon juice. Cover and leave 2 hours (or overnight in the fridge).
Ingredients: 1000 g strawberries · 500 g sugar · 1 pcs lemon, juice
TipMacerating in sugar draws out the juice, so you cook briefly and the fruit doesn't collapse into purée. That is what keeps pieces of fruit in the jam.
Sugar and lemon over the strawberriesCheck the syrup
After two hours the strawberries float in red syrup and the sugar is almost dissolved. Put a small saucer in the freezer: you will need it for the test.
Syrup, sugar dissolved, saucer into the freezerBoil briefly and hard
Tip everything into a wide pot and bring to the boil over high heat. Boil, stirring now and then and skimming the foam, 20–25 minutes. Wide pot and high heat: the water evaporates fast, before the fruit loses colour.
TipFoam isn't dirt, only air and fruit proteins. Skimmed, it gives clear jam; left in, it does no harm, at most it clouds the jam.
A hard boil, foam skimmedThe saucer test
Drop a little jam onto the cold saucer from the freezer, wait 30 seconds and push it with a finger. If the surface wrinkles, the jam is ready. If the drop runs like syrup, boil 3 minutes more and test again.
Wrinkles under the finger: readyInto jars
Scald the jars and lids. Pour the hot jam into hot jars to 0.5 cm from the rim, wipe the threads and screw the lids on tightly. Pasteurise 10 minutes in a pot of hot water reaching three-quarters of the jars' height, lift out and stand upside down for 10 minutes. Turn upright and leave to cool; the lids pull down.
Hot into hot, upside downStore
Sealed jars keep a year in a cool pantry. Keep opened jam in the fridge for up to a month. Jam that set too firmly loosens with a spoon of warm water before use.
Four jars of June for the winter
Before you start
It didn't set
Too little pectin (very ripe berries) or too short a boil. Pour it back into the pot with the juice of a second lemon and boil 5 minutes. Or keep it as a sauce for crepes.
Less sugar
You can go down to 300 g, but then pasteurise the jars for 15 minutes instead of 10 and eat the jam within six months; it will also be looser. Sugar is the preservative.
With rhubarb
700 g strawberries and 300 g diced rhubarb: sharper, sets better, the classic June pairing.