It is all or nothing with strawberries in my garden – either I am peering at the unripe fruit wondering when I will be able to start picking or the whole bed is full of juicy red strawberries just waiting for a slug to come along and eat them!

Today was a glut day – more strawberries than we can possibly eat, so I decided to make jam.

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I like my strawberry jam quite runny and not to sweet –  more of a chilled sauce to pour over ice cream on a hot afternoon than a true set jam, although it works equally well with scones or toast. My favourite recipe comes from Sarah Raven’s “Garden Cookbook  ” which is a constant in my kitchen:

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Her recipe for French Strawberry Jam fits my preferences perfectly and is quick and easy to make.

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The recipe suggests a mix of garden and alpine strawberries, but as my alpine strawberries are not quite ready yet, I hulled and cut up 1.25kg of ripe garden strawberries.

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The strawberries went into a large pan together with 850g of sugar and the juice of 1 lemon. After melting the sugar over a low heat, boiling the contents of the pan for 7 minutes and then leaving the mix to cool for 20 minutes, the jam was ladled into sterilised jars and labeled:

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All I need to do now is make some vanilla ice cream for the perfect summer treat!