Why It is worth making jam

 Over the years I have made a lot of jam and most flavours.  Why - basically because the flavours are a lot better than bought, and you know what exactly has gone into them.  Collecting your ingredients together with fresh and often dried produce, helps you live and be in the moment.  Whilst preparing and cooking the jam you become embedded in the process and it is a right of passage a seasonal project that produces a lot more jars of jam for the money.

If  you are a person who bakes a lot, then this is a necessary practice when the season for a particular fruit strikes. A very useful preserve in all sorts of flavours to vary the cake making, tart making, pancakes, morning breakfast up a bit.

For instance in the last 6 weeks or so I have worked my way through a jar of Blackberry and Apple jam, Victoria Plum jam and I am now on a small jar of French Apricot jam.  All the jam has been made by myself.

I have taken well certainly through the Spring and Summer months when it is a lot warmer to having Croissant, Petit Pains or Pains Chocolat served with butter, cream cheese and a chosen jam.  A simple breakfast that I find enough for me without being overwhelming.

However you can also use the jams in pastries, puddings, pancakes, cake fillings, in yogurt, in semolina or rice puddings and you end up getting the taste of a season you are usually out of i.e. in the winter months you get autumn and spring delights and at Christmas if you have kept a jar of each preserve at least for the Christmas baking you get a varied selection of goodies with which to cook with and vary your diet up a bit with too.

Most of all though you get the satisfaction of making it yourself and more jars of preserve for your pennies.  Nothing is complicated if you follow the process, however often showing people how to do things sticks with them better as most people are visual learners and tend to worry about the little things they cannot see. Well worth having a go, but do read up on simple jam making and the process involved several times before having a go and have the book to hand.

Well worth the effort.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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