If you were to tell me years ago, that I would be making my own jam in the future, I would have said to you, "You mad bro!"
I have never seen myself so domesticated before it is insane. This is what a full lockdown can do to you, and when people give you loads of berries and your children and husband are not big fans of those berries.
It started because I didn't want the berries to turn bad - so I decided to make a jam out of it - that way, we can keep it for long. Coincidentally, our store-bought jam also finished liau - so perfect time or what.
I started googling for easy recipes and many of them have pectin in them, but since I did not know then what pectin is, I googled, "Homemade berries jam without pectin" and the recipe came out and it worked!
FYI - these berries also have got pectin in them naturally so when you cook them longer, they will get thicker over time and becomes jam after keeping in the fridge.
So, all you need are your berries (can be just strawberry or mix berries), sugar, and lemon juice. SO EASY RIGHT. Ohh, and with lots of love heh.
Because it is that easy!
The first thing to do is you would want to dice your berries. Then, put them in a pot and your fire should be medium - not too big later your berries chau-weh-ta (burnt).
After you realize that more liquid is coming out of the berries, taste to see if the combination of all the berries turns out to be sweet or sour. If sour, add in some sugar and stir.
Then, add in a bit of lemon juice. Yes, even if the berries are sour, you still need to add a bit of lemon juice, because the lemon juice will lower the pH of the mixture.
Then, taste again to make sure it becomes the kind of jam that you would like - not too sweet and not too sour. I always add sugar slowly to make sure it doesn't get too sweet.
Oh, also remember to mash the berries to the consistency that you would like. If you like your jam to be chunkier, then mash less.
Let the jam cools down, and transfer to glass bottles to keep. I'm not sure if you can keep in plastic bottles, because why not right? But I just follow what people usually do - so I also keep mine in glass bottles heh.
The first batch that I did, I kept it in the fridge and almost finished. So I guess time to get more berries to make more jam.
You can try to make your own jam because the store-bought ones - don't know what other preservatives they put inside. So, I guess you can say that this is a much healthier option for you and your family.
And it is so satisfying to make it seriously.
Here's a quick video :)
Till next time, bye now.