Condiments
Strawberry jam: the homemade recipe that really sets
Strawberry is the fruit we wait for all year and also the one we most often get wrong: little pectin, little acidity and a lot of water lead to a jar that runs off the spoon or an overcooked mass that tastes of sugar. This recipe tackles the three problems separately, with twelve hours of cold maceration, short two-stage cooking and pectin taken from an apple instead of a packet.
Method
- Put three saucers in the freezer and sterilise the jars: boil them for 10 minutes or heat them for 15 minutes at 120 °C in the oven, with new lids or intact seals.
- Wash the strawberries with the hull still attached, dry them and only then remove the hull. Leave small and medium ones whole and cut large ones in half: cut into pieces they fall apart.
- Mix the strawberries with the sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl, cover and leave to macerate for at least 12 hours in the refrigerator. Do not add water.
- Pour everything into a colander set over a pot: collect the syrup and set the strawberries aside.
- Add the grated apple and the cheesecloth bag with cores, seeds and peels to the syrup. Cook over high heat for 8-12 minutes, until thick, around 104 °C: this is where most of the water evaporates without the fruit suffering.
- Put the strawberries back in the pot, bring back to a boil and cook for 8-10 minutes over high heat, stirring gently and skimming off the foam.
- Turn off the heat and do the cold saucer test: a teaspoon on the frozen saucer, a minute in the freezer, then run a finger through it. If the groove does not close up, it is ready; if it still runs, cook for another 5 minutes and try again.
- Squeeze the cheesecloth bag over the pot and discard it. Let rest for 10 minutes off the heat, then stir gently: this pause decides whether the strawberries stay evenly distributed.
- Fill the jars when the jam is hot but not boiling, around 85 °C, filling up to 1 cm from the rim. Wipe the rim with a cloth dipped in boiling water, close and leave to cool upright.
Minnelea products for this recipe
The preserves used in this recipe.
Minnelea
Extra Strawberry Jam – Artisan, Preservative-Free
€7,90
Minnelea
Sweet Awakening Kit – 6 Artisan Jams
€39,00
• Strawberries are about 90% water, only 0,5-0,7% pectin and have a pH around 3,4, while pectin gels best below 3,3: these three numbers, not talent, explain jars that run.
• Cold maceration for 12 hours in the refrigerator does three things at once: it extracts water by osmosis, firms the pieces because sugar enters the cells, and already lowers the pH thanks to the lemon while protecting the bright red color. Never add water: every drop that goes in will have to come out later, with heat.
• Short two-stage cooking is what saves the aroma: first the syrup is concentrated on its own up to 104 °C, then the fruit goes back in for 8-10 minutes. Strawberry volatile compounds evaporate at 100 °C along with the water, which is why the scent you smell in the kitchen is scent lost.
• Pectin without a packet: one grated tart apple, plus cores, seeds and peels of two apples tied in gauze. That is where pectin is most concentrated, and it is the part usually thrown away. Cook the bag with the fruit and squeeze it at the end. Alternatively, 100 ml redcurrant juice.
• Be generous with lemon: 60 ml for 1,5 kg fruit brings the pH into the gelling range and keeps the color bright. Gelling sugar is the most tempting shortcut, but it gives a jar that tastes like sweet jelly with red pieces inside, and imposes about 65% sugar.
• Varieties: Elsanta, the most common in supermarkets, is firm but watery and not very fragrant, and needs more lemon and a few extra minutes; Sonata is sweeter and softer, breaks down quickly, so short cooking and large pieces; Malwina, late and dark, is the most acidic and intense, on paper the best for jam.
• The 80/20 rule: mix 80% well-ripe fruit with 20% still firm fruit, because that fifth brings the pectin and acidity the rest lacks. Always wash strawberries before removing the hull, otherwise they absorb water.
• Strawberries that float are not a recipe flaw but a matter of density: the pieces contain air and rise while the jam is fluid. Two remedies: a 10-minute rest with slow stirring, and jarring around 85 °C and not boiling hot.
• Cold-plate test: three small plates in the freezer before starting, pot off the heat (a boiling jam falsifies the result), one teaspoon on the chilled plate, one minute in the freezer, then the finger through the middle. If the surface wrinkles and the groove does not close, you are done; with a thermometer, the setting point is between 104 and 105 °C.
• The jam firms for another 24-48 hours: a jar that looks fluid while lukewarm is often perfect the next morning. Extending the cooking out of uncertainty is, with strawberries, the most common mistake.
• Storage: with this sugar proportion (45-50%, that is 700 g for 1,5 kg), one year closed in the dark and one week in the refrigerator once opened. Going down to 500 g for 1,5 kg makes the set fragile and requires two apples: 6 months closed, 5 days opened. Almost no sugar makes it a compote, not a jam: 4-5 days in the refrigerator or frozen. Always fill hot into hot jars and, once cold, check that every lid is concave and does not click; the less sugar you use, the stricter hygiene must be.
• Allergens: none. Only fruit, sugar and lemon - gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free.
• Variations: the seeds of half a vanilla bean added at the end of cooking, a handful of wild strawberries to visibly lift the aroma, or the two-day version - 5 minutes boiling, one night of rest, then another 5-8 minutes the next day - for even shorter cooking.
• Vocabulary note: by law, “marmalade” refers only to citrus-based products, so strawberry is called jam.
A Minnelea recipe built around Extra Strawberry Jam: on our farm in Cilento we cook under vacuum at low temperature, where at reduced pressure water evaporates at around 60 °C instead of 100, so volatile compounds remain mostly in the kettle rather than in the air - 120 g strawberries per 100 g finished product, with no added pectin and no preservatives, with density coming from evaporation and the fruit. At home, that method cannot be replicated; a pot with a lid is not a vacuum. But in May you can work with strawberries picked this morning, and that is an advantage no system has.
• Cold maceration for 12 hours in the refrigerator does three things at once: it extracts water by osmosis, firms the pieces because sugar enters the cells, and already lowers the pH thanks to the lemon while protecting the bright red color. Never add water: every drop that goes in will have to come out later, with heat.
• Short two-stage cooking is what saves the aroma: first the syrup is concentrated on its own up to 104 °C, then the fruit goes back in for 8-10 minutes. Strawberry volatile compounds evaporate at 100 °C along with the water, which is why the scent you smell in the kitchen is scent lost.
• Pectin without a packet: one grated tart apple, plus cores, seeds and peels of two apples tied in gauze. That is where pectin is most concentrated, and it is the part usually thrown away. Cook the bag with the fruit and squeeze it at the end. Alternatively, 100 ml redcurrant juice.
• Be generous with lemon: 60 ml for 1,5 kg fruit brings the pH into the gelling range and keeps the color bright. Gelling sugar is the most tempting shortcut, but it gives a jar that tastes like sweet jelly with red pieces inside, and imposes about 65% sugar.
• Varieties: Elsanta, the most common in supermarkets, is firm but watery and not very fragrant, and needs more lemon and a few extra minutes; Sonata is sweeter and softer, breaks down quickly, so short cooking and large pieces; Malwina, late and dark, is the most acidic and intense, on paper the best for jam.
• The 80/20 rule: mix 80% well-ripe fruit with 20% still firm fruit, because that fifth brings the pectin and acidity the rest lacks. Always wash strawberries before removing the hull, otherwise they absorb water.
• Strawberries that float are not a recipe flaw but a matter of density: the pieces contain air and rise while the jam is fluid. Two remedies: a 10-minute rest with slow stirring, and jarring around 85 °C and not boiling hot.
• Cold-plate test: three small plates in the freezer before starting, pot off the heat (a boiling jam falsifies the result), one teaspoon on the chilled plate, one minute in the freezer, then the finger through the middle. If the surface wrinkles and the groove does not close, you are done; with a thermometer, the setting point is between 104 and 105 °C.
• The jam firms for another 24-48 hours: a jar that looks fluid while lukewarm is often perfect the next morning. Extending the cooking out of uncertainty is, with strawberries, the most common mistake.
• Storage: with this sugar proportion (45-50%, that is 700 g for 1,5 kg), one year closed in the dark and one week in the refrigerator once opened. Going down to 500 g for 1,5 kg makes the set fragile and requires two apples: 6 months closed, 5 days opened. Almost no sugar makes it a compote, not a jam: 4-5 days in the refrigerator or frozen. Always fill hot into hot jars and, once cold, check that every lid is concave and does not click; the less sugar you use, the stricter hygiene must be.
• Allergens: none. Only fruit, sugar and lemon - gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free.
• Variations: the seeds of half a vanilla bean added at the end of cooking, a handful of wild strawberries to visibly lift the aroma, or the two-day version - 5 minutes boiling, one night of rest, then another 5-8 minutes the next day - for even shorter cooking.
• Vocabulary note: by law, “marmalade” refers only to citrus-based products, so strawberry is called jam.
A Minnelea recipe built around Extra Strawberry Jam: on our farm in Cilento we cook under vacuum at low temperature, where at reduced pressure water evaporates at around 60 °C instead of 100, so volatile compounds remain mostly in the kettle rather than in the air - 120 g strawberries per 100 g finished product, with no added pectin and no preservatives, with density coming from evaporation and the fruit. At home, that method cannot be replicated; a pot with a lid is not a vacuum. But in May you can work with strawberries picked this morning, and that is an advantage no system has.