Jam Making made a lot easier

I like to make jam but I find it a real faff, the preparation, the amount of time, the burns, the testing on a saucer, the clean up, and everything is sticky for days later.  I think that I have finally made it a lot easier with the help of a gadget and a bit of planning.  The Belltech Jam and Jelly maker from Lakeland.co.uk really is a very good gadget.  It isn’t cheap, coming it at over £100.00 but it really has made jam making so much easier.  I started out using the pulp and pectin which came from Lakeland and I’ve now diversified to preparing my own fruit and using the cheaper supermarket pectin.

So here’s how I approach it now.  I work on sugar being 80% of the weight of the fruit up to a max of one kilo, and one sachet of pectin.  Any alcohol gets added in at the end.

120 minutes before – runs jars through the dishwasher

40 minutes before – turn oven on to 100 degrees.  Start preparing your fruit.

30 minutes before – remove jars from dishwasher and put into oven.  Put the jam maker on the counter along with your jam sugar and pectin sachet.

25 minutes before – sprinkle the pectin into the jam maker and add the prepared fruit. Plug the jam maker in, press the jelly button and then the enter button.

21 minutes before – the jam maker beeps, you add the sugar and put the lid on.

1 minute before – take the jars out of the oven.

0 minutes – Jam is ready to jar and seal (this is the point at which I add 0.5-a cup of alcohol.

The jam maker and all the accessories go into the dishwasher.

So what are the downsides: Maximum 1 kilo fruit means your batches won’t be that much bigger than 8 medium jars.