Sugar Mice, at the end of it. (Preserves)

Member Name: Celandine

Product:	Preserves
Date:	05/08/01 (3740 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gorgeous, cheapskate, and some sugar mice at the end

Disadvantages: You need time, but not for the mice

Preserving. The name conjures up so many images. Images of big farmhouse kitchens, of homely ladies in big starched aprons, of cooks in big houses making sweetmeats for the table, and of children in the 1940's picking rosehips and blackberries to make into syrup and compensate for the scarcity of citrus fruit in wartime England.

It all sounds vaguely romantic, and the product of a bygone age. But it isn't, I can assure you. Preserving is alive and well in my tiny kitchen, and it isn't at all romantic. Nor do I possess starch, let alone a white apron. But home-made jam tastes absolutely gorgeous, is easy to make, and works out much cheaper than the bought varieties (unless you count the Supermarket budget brands that taste of chemically flavoured sugar).

So, feeling rather like a 1950's cooker advert, (Jeepers! It's Jam Time), I'll start with the really basic stuff, then add some of the things I've found that make jam making easier, and then tack on a couple of basic recipes (although part of my pleasure from making jam comes from mixing up different sorts of fruit, and seeing what the end product tastes like).

First, though, the basics behind jam and jelly making in general. Jam consists of fruit, water, and sugar. Fruit has in it a natural ingredient called pectin, which is the gelling agent that causes the jam to set, once it has boiled to a high enough temperature. Some sorts of fruit have a higher pectin content than others. Strawberries, for example, have a very low pectin content, so it can be difficult to get a good 'set', whereas Bramley Apples have loads. Things like raspberries and blackberries have a medium pectin content.

There are various ways to get around the setting problem. You can buy pectin sugar, which is expensive, or commercial jars of pectin (not quite so pricey in the long run), or you can mix fruit of a low and high pectin content together (hence the popularity of Black
berry and Apple jams). Any of these ways of boosting the pectin content is fine, but if you are a jam-making virgin, then I'd suggest your first jam contains some fruit of a high pectin content, or you buy the pectin sugar.

So. You've got your fruit of choice, and your sugar. The first thing to do is to release the pectin in the fruit by mashing it and stewing it (how long for depends on the sort of fruit). I tend to bung apples in a slow cooker overnight, since this is a really easy way of doing it. Then you actually have to make the jam, and although I'm slowly turning into Delia, you do need some basic utensils if life is going to be at all easy, and if you aren't going to end up with a sticky pink kitchen (if you love wasps, and have sugar pink walls anyway, then don't worry about this bit).

You need a nice big pan, and if you can buy, beg or borrow one with a good thick base, then the sugar is less likely to stick. I've a massive soup/jam pan I use. Before that I used my landlady's saucepan, and that was fine, too, unless my housemate had made a virulent curry the night before and not cleaned it properly (strawberry and turmeric - yum).

You need some clean jars, too, to decant the stuff into, and you need to get these sterilised, which is easy-peasy. Put your jars into a pan of cold water, and bring the water to the boil. Just lift them out carefully, ok. I actually use a microwave, which is easy-peasier. Half fill jars with water, and place them, two at a time, in the oven on full power until the water is bubbling (about 2 minutes). When your jars are sterilised, keep them warm in an oven, since otherwise the meeting of cold glass and boiling jam will have interesting results.

Ok, so you're prepared. Now add the sugar to the mushed fruit (it's usually about the same quantity of sugar to fruit), and a bit of water (that varies, so use a recipe). Put over a low heat, and stir until the sugar
is all dissolved. Then whammy up the heat to very high, and wait for the setting point.

Oh, the wonders of the setting point, the ever elusive setting point. This is the nadir of jam-making, when the boiling red stuff becomes jam, rather than sloppy sweet gunk. It is also the point where I become a smug annoying 1950's organised person, since I have a sugar thermometer. This may mean little to you, but to me... it's changed my preserving, pickling and sweetmeating life. I'll explain. If you don't have a sugar thermometer, then you don't know when the jam has reached 105 degrees centigrade (the setting point), and if you don't know that, then you have to keep on testing the stuff.

Testing it involves saucers, fridges, cold water, and dropping bits of boiling stuff onto said things, then seeing if it forms a 'skin', or wrinkles when you stick your finger into it. This is not fun. It's tedious and hurts. It causes frantic searches for a clean saucer, and constant hovering over vast pots of boiling stuff. Buy a sugar thermometer, please. Mine cost 3.95.

Anyway, once the gunky stuff hits 105 degrees centigrade/240 degrees fahrenheit, we have jam. Decant into your warm jampots, and cover with wax discs and jam pot covers (available from Boots, and suchlike stores). Then frantically wipe down all your surfaces. You have made jam. The wax-discy things come with labels, so you can label your jam, and it will keep for ages if unopened, although once opened I'd keep it in a fridge.

That was the dull bit. Now for the lovely recipes. These aren't your bog-standard strawberry jam recipes, because you can find those anywhere. Try any big sugar manufacturer's website, or Delia, or the local library. If you can't find one, email me, and I'll tell you. I want to give you the lovely, interesting, unusual ones here, because, strange as it seems, I care about jam-making. I like making lovely, i
nteresting, unusual ones, and, if you've never eaten home-made cranberry jelly, then I don't think you've lived. Tesco's finest? Pah.

Gooseberry and Strawberry Jam

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pound/675 g Gooseberries
1 1/2 pound/675 g Strawberries
1/4 pint water
3 pounds/275 g sugar

Method:
Top and tail gooseberries, and hull strawberries, then simmer the gooseberries with the water until tender. Add strawberries, and cook for another few minutes. Add sugar, and, stirring, cook over a low heat untill it is all dissolved. Boil rapidly until setting point is reached. Decant into jars.

Makes about five jars.


Rose-petal Jam

Ingredients:
1 pound/450g rose petals (from old fashioned cabbage roses, not hybrid T's)
8 oz/225g sugar
8oz/225g honey
4 Tablespoons of water

Method:
Wash petals well, and place in pan with rest of ingredients. Cook over gentle heat until sugar has dissolved. Boil until setting point is reached.

Makes about 2 jars, but it's lovely, honestly.


I'm desperate to give you more recipes, but I want to give you recipes for jellies, not jams. Oh, and syrups, and sweeties, and pickles, because these are all preserves, too. The last thing I made (last week) was Mint jelly, and it tastes really rather nice, even if the colour isn't that great (Wee jelly, that's what it looks like). Oh, and the cost of it was about 50p per jar, overall. They make lovely presents, too, these things (not the Wee jelly, though). I know it sounds terribly cheapskate, but they honestly do. People, I think, on the whole, like nice foods, and they like to know where the ingredients have come from, too, and if it's your garden, it makes the whole thing nicer still. Unfortunately we haven't planted any fruit trees yet, so I can't say that for us, but fruit picking is lovely, and can be enjoyed by children as well.
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br>Because children can't help with the jam-making bit, if they're little (boiling liquids and all that), I thought I'd pop just one more recipe for sugar mice, right at the end, so they have something nice to make, too. But if anyone wants sweeties and jelly recipes, then I'll do another recipe thingy. It's just this one is a bit long, now.


Sugar Mice

Ingredients:
2 pounds of granulated sugar
3/4 pint water
3oz glucose (you can get this from Boots, or good cook shops)
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
nice clean white string
red food colouring if wished

Method:
Put the sugar and water into a pan, and heat gently until the sugar is dissolved.
Add glucose, and boil until 240 degrees fahrenheit/105 centigrade (setting point, again).
Take from heat, and allow to cool until it starts to thicken.
When cool enough to handle, work in the colouring, if you are using it, and knead it.
Shape into mice-shapes - or little grubby sausages, if you're under 2 years old.
Make the ears seperately, and press them on.
Take a tiny bit of fondant, work in the cocoa powder and make eyes.
Stick the tails into the fondant.

Makes 16 mice (or hedgehogs, or dinosaurs, or grubby things with ears and tails).

And they make even nicer presents!

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