There is nothing better than homemade organic jam made from produce from your garden or allotment. So if you find yourself with extra strawberries and rhubarb, you can follow this simple recipe to make low sugar jam which is healthy alternative to high sugar supermarket products that often contains more sugar than fruit.
With low sugar recipe use between 15-20% of sugar to fruit in weight ratio. In this recipe I use 20% as it will help to conserve the jam a bit longer, but you can adjust the ratio according to your taste buds.
To make a jam
Ingredients:
- 1kg peeled rhubarb
- 500g strawberries
- 300g brown sugar or maple syrup
- 1 lemon
Optional: pectin sugar (to make jam even thicker)
1. Peel and chop rhubarb stalks into small pieces and wash the strawberries
2. Fill the pot with fruit, add sugar and lemon juice without pits. Bring to boil and let it simmer for 1 hour reducing the volume by 1/3 to half. Stir the fruit regularly especially during second 30 min to prevent burning the fruit. All the fruit needs to be mushed and you know the jam is ready when consistency is thick. You can use wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of pan and if the jam is too runny give it another 10-15min.
TIP: don`t cover and use wide bottom pot. You get greater heat transfer and water evaporation, speeding up the process.
3. Fill sterilized and preheated glass jars. Closed jars can be stored in fridge for several months.
Happy gardening
Help us plant more native trees
Every purchase from our website will help us to buy and grow more native trees of which we have so little in Ireland. You can also help by sharing our content, products, or donate additional trees here. You can also help us during the planting days. Every small help will be greatly appreciated.