Summer is the time to stock up on aromatic northern berries so that in case of a cold or bad mood, put a jar of raspberry jam or lingonberry jam on the table. Figured out how to cook the jam so that it turns out delicious. At the end of the text, there are three simple recipes.

How to choose a cookware for making jam?

It is advisable to choose a copper pan or basin. Copper is ideal for making jam because it distributes heat evenly over it. But if there is no such pan, then any one with a thick bottom will do. It is better to choose something of a large volume so that the berries do not run away during the cooking process. You may also need a wooden stirring spoon and jars to use for the jam.

How to store jam?

It is best to store the jam in small glass jars with a screw lid (the lids must be new each time). 250 grams is the ideal size, the jam will last for a week or two and it will not have time to deteriorate.

Be sure to sterilize the jars and lids to prevent the jam from turning into wine. It will take you 30 minutes, but you will be sure that nothing will go bad. The procedure is actually not very difficult, especially if you have a dishwasher. Place the cans with lids in the dishwasher on the hottest cycle without detergent. Or, place the still wet jars and lids in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. If you prefer the traditional methods, boil the jars and lids in a large saucepan. Remove the sterilized jars and lids with tongs and place them to dry on a clean towel.

How to choose berries and sugar for jam?

Very often I use overripe berries and fruits in jam, but this is not the right choice. Strong berries contain the most pectin, a natural thickener. If you want the jam to be thicker, then choose just such berries and fruits. The least amount of pectin is in strawberries and peaches, most of all - in currants, apples and plums.

Sugar is the main preservative for jam, and you can choose absolutely any sand. Traditional recipes call for taking a kilogram of sugar per kilogram of refined product, and then as you like. For example, in the recipe for raspberry jam, this should be done, but in blueberry jam, it is better to add a kilogram of sugar to two kilograms of berries. At the very end of cooking, you can add one or two tablespoons of lemon juice to activate the pectin and preserve the flavor of fruits and berries.

How to make jam: basic steps

Jam, jam, jam, marmalade, jelly - all these are different ways of preserving fruits and berries, vegetables, nuts and even flowers. When cooking jam, ingredients tend to retain their shape; jam or confiture - boiled. Marmalade is a jam made from citrus fruits, most often oranges. Jam - mashed potatoes boiled with sugar. There is also raw jam - in it the ingredients are ground with sugar. And also jelly - for example, from red currant berries.

After you have decided what you want (jam or jam), start cooking:

• For jam, it is better to first cook sugar syrup in a one-to-one ratio, and for jam, fill the raw materials with sugar for 20 minutes, or even better overnight (this will be faster).
• After boiling, you need to cook the resulting substance for 40-50 minutes over high heat so that the water evaporates faster and the pectin starts working.
• At the end of boiling, do not forget to remove the foam - someone does this all the time, but in general it is enough once, at the end of boiling. The foam must be removed so that the jam remains transparent.
• Pour the hot jam or marmalade into the jars without adding one centimeter to the top of the jar. Tighten the lids, but not completely so that the cans do not burst.

How to make jam? Three recipes for Karelia

Raspberry jam

Sort out the raspberries and pour them into a bowl, sprinkling with sugar. One glass of berries - one glass of sugar. After that, leave the berries for 2-3 hours. Then put on low heat for 40 minutes, until the juice from the berries soaks all the sugar. Increase heat to medium, bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until all the sugar is dissolved. Remember to stir and skim. The jam is considered ready when the foam ceases to stand out.

Red currant jelly

You will need a juicer or a little patience for this recipe. Red currant berries must be thoroughly washed, sorted out and squeezed out of juice. The easiest way to do this is with a juicer, but if it is not there, then you can grind it with a sieve or crush it in gauze. We are left with the juice and "cake" from the berries (by the way, it can be put on a compote). Add sugar to currant juice in proportions 1: 1 and cook for about 15-20 minutes. Remember to stir and skim constantly.

Gooseberry and orange jam

Rinse thoroughly and sort out all the berries, it is advisable to cut off the gooseberry "tails". You will need about 900 grams of gooseberries, 1.2 kg of sugar and two oranges. Remove the pits from the orange, twist together with the zest and gooseberries in a blender or pass through a meat grinder. Then stir this mass with sugar, put on fire, boil for 7-10 minutes. Leave the jam for 5-6 hours in a cool place, and then boil again for 7-10 minutes. After that, you can pour the jam into the jars.

Jam is 70% sugar and only 30% water, - says a professor at the Research Institute of Nutrition and the Moscow Medical Academy. Sechenov Boris Sukhanov. - In terms of calorie content, it is not inferior to chocolate desserts. It contains no more than 10-30% of vitamins. Heat treatment destroys vitamin C by 80%. The finished jam contains 2-3 times less carotenoids and B vitamins and 4-5 times less nicotinic acid than the original product.

How to store nutrients

• Make a five-minute jam or cold jam.
• Five-minute jam preserves vitamins by 70%, cold jam - by 95%.
• Cook in several steps.
• After boiling, keep the jam on fire for 3-5 minutes, then refrigerate (6-8 hours). Repeat the procedure 3-4 times.
• Send the right fruit for processing.
  
  Vitamins are best preserved during cooking in currants (red and black) and in sea buckthorn.

Sweet medicine

Raspberries - has anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects.

Dogwood - treats colds, indigestion, urolithiasis.

Nut - improves heart function, normalizes blood circulation, it is recommended for thyroid diseases. It is used to prevent atherosclerosis.

Black currant - helps with vitamin deficiency, heart and vascular diseases, laryngitis, bronchitis. Improves blood formation, relieves putrefactive and fermentative processes in the intestines.

Cranberry - due to the high content of tannin, it sorbs pathogenic bacteria in the body and removes them outside.

Barberry - multivitamin, antipyretic and anti-inflammatory agent.

Sea buckthorn - a natural biostimulant, improves digestion, reduces liver dystrophy in hepatitis, lowers cholesterol levels.

Which is healthier - homemade or store-bought?

Homemade, - convinced the candidate of medical sciences, nutritionist Irina Gushchina. - When preparing jam on an industrial scale, preservatives, artificial pectins and flavors are necessarily used.

Should you remove the bones?

It is desirable, - says Irina Gushchina. - The bones of some fruits and berries contain hydrocyanic acid - a dangerous poison that eventually begins to penetrate into the jam. True, in order to get serious poisoning, you need to eat at least a three-liter jar of expired jam with seeds.

Can i cook from spoiled fruits?

No, says Elena Tereshina. - Fruits with foulbrood contain mycotoxins, which are not destroyed by heating. These microorganisms accumulate in the body and, over time, can provoke serious diseases, including cancer.

In which dish is it better to cook

In a wide, with low edges - moisture evaporates faster in it, the cooking process is reduced, which means that vitamins are better preserved, '' says Elena Tereshina, Doctor of Biological Sciences, head of the laboratory of the Research Institute of Gerontology of Roszdrav. - For making jam, basins or pots with a capacity of 2 to 6 liters made of non-oxidizing metals - enameled or stainless steel - are best suited. But it is better not to use copper basins. Copper ions destroy ascorbic acid. Also, dishes made of aluminum are not suitable: fruit acids destroy the oxide film on the surface of aluminum.

Why does it go bad

The jam can be stored for up to 3 years, - says Elena Tereshina. - If it deteriorated in the first winter, then the rules for its preparation or storage were violated.

• Poor quality raw materials
  
  Jam made from spoiled berries is stored for no more than a month.
• Non-compliance with the recipe
  
  Low sugar content in jam (less than 65%) can cause sourness, moldy and fermentation, and excess sugar can cause sugar.
• Improper handling of dishes
  
  Jam jars must be sterilized - baked in the oven or rinsed with boiling water.
• Incorrect storage conditions
  
  Only classic and syrup jam can be stored at room temperature. Cold jam and five-minute jam should be kept in the refrigerator.

By the way

According to the Public Opinion Foundation, 73% of Russian residents make homemade jam.

Recipes

1. Classic recipe

How to cook: Processed berries or fruits are placed in a bowl, covered with sugar (usually in a 1: 1 ratio) and put on fire. Stirring occasionally, bring to a boil and cook over low heat until tender, until a drop of syrup applied to a saucer spreads. The “right” jam preserves the color of fresh fruit. If the finished jam has a brownish tint, it is overcooked.

Pros:

Can be stored at room temperature.

Minuses:

The most destructive way of cooking for vitamins.

2. Berries in syrup

How to cook: first, make a syrup: pour the required amount of granulated sugar into a saucepan or basin, pour it with water (at the rate of ½ to 2 glasses of water for 1.5 kg of sugar) and put on fire. While stirring, bring to a boil, filter. Then put berries or fruits in the syrup and cook until tender.

Pros:

Stores well.

Minuses:

Time consuming way

With any deviation from the recipe, the jam loses its presentation

Sugar quickly.

3. Five-minute jam

How to cook: the berries are covered with sand or covered with syrup, brought to a boil, kept on fire for 5 minutes. The finished jam is rolled up with lids.

Pros:

Retains vitamins, original taste and color of fruits

Low-calorie: less sugar is taken - 500-700 g per 1 kg of berries.

Minuses:

Stored in the refrigerator

Time consuming preparation.

4. Cold jam, or mashed jam

How to cook: sugar is poured into a bowl with berries (1.5 kg of sand per 1 kg of berries) and grind with a wooden pestle until smooth. A 1 cm layer of sugar is poured into the jars on top of the jam.

Pros:

Retains all vitamins and minerals.

Minuses

The most popular fruits used to make jam

2. Black currant

3. Strawberries

According to the companies - jam producers.

Just like in the whole world, and maybe even stronger, sweet in Russia has always been loved. And one of the most common, most beloved sweet dishes in Russian cities and villages has always been jam. Even in the poorest, meanest times, the housewives tried to prepare at least a few jars of sweet, aromatic, smelling of generous summer jam. The methods of cooking were often kept secret, and the well-prepared treats were proudly boasted to the guests. And these good traditions are still alive today. Every home, every family has a carefully prepared jar with this delicious and fragrant dessert. Today we will try to learn and remember how to make jam.

Almost any berries and fruits are suitable for making jam. Ripe fragrant strawberries, cherries and currants, strong ruddy apples, peaches and apricots, blueberries and blueberries loved by many, and even such exotic fruits for our regions as walnuts and green tomatoes, everything goes into action. Various additives will not be superfluous when cooking delicious jam, for example, cherry leaves are suitable for gooseberry jam, black currant leaves can be added to white currant jelly, and jam from watermelon and melon peels is unthinkable without vanilla and lemon juice. The jam also differs in its consistency, it is convenient to spread a thick homogeneous jam on a morning toast or a sandwich, and the jam itself, which has a much thinner syrup consistency, but whole berries, is so pleasant to eat with tea on cold winter evenings.

Today there are an endless number of recipes and ways to make jam. The cooking time and the method are different. preparation of berries and fruits, and even the base of the syrup. Someone makes jam using sugar syrup, and someone, remembering old traditions, cooks berries in honey. Everyone can choose a recipe according to their strength and means. And yet, the basic principles of cooking, little secrets and tricks developed by generations of our ancestors are still relevant to this day.

Today "Culinary Eden" has prepared for you a selection of the most important tips and secrets that can help even those who are going to prepare this sweet dish for the first time, and will fully explain you how to make jam.

1. When choosing utensils for cooking your jam, try to turn your attention to deep and wide basins or pots made of copper, aluminum or stainless steel. Copper basins for jam with a comfortable long handle were considered the best at all times. The jam in such a bowl is prepared quickly, which helps preserve the color and aroma of the berries. However, it is important to ensure that green deposits of harmful copper oxides do not form on the inner surface of such a basin. Pots and pans made of aluminum and stainless steel are free from this drawback. But it is better to refrain from using enameled dishes, the likelihood is too high that your jam will burn and be completely spoiled.

2. Berries and fruits for jam try to choose the best and freshest. Of course, only those berries that you picked in your garden on the day of cooking can be ideal berries for making jam, but, unfortunately, this is not available to everyone. When buying berries at the market or store, try to prioritize local fruits. Such berries and fruits make a much shorter way to our table, which means that they preserve the fullness of taste and aroma much better. Most berries and fruits are best taken not fully ripe, but choose cherries and plums that are absolutely ripe. Make sure that your berries do not have any visible flaws, damage, dark spots, bruises. Do not forget to smell the berries before buying, because the brighter and more expressive the aroma of fresh fruits, the more tasty and fragrant your jam will turn out.

3. In order to make a truly tasty and beautiful jam, you first need to properly prepare the sugar syrup. After all, only on well-prepared syrup can you cook the best quality jam, such jam will have a clean, transparent syrup and whole, beautiful and aromatic berries. You can't cook such syrup at all hard. Take 1 kg. sugar, pour into a bowl for making jam, add ½ cup of clean water and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. After boiling, reduce the heat slightly, stop stirring and simmer the syrup, shaking the basin only slightly, being careful not to caramelize. Your syrup will be completely ready when it flows down from a spoon dipped into it in a thick, viscous trickle. You will see - the berries, cooked in such a syrup, perfectly retain their shape.

4. During the cooking of the jam, foam is necessarily formed on its surface, which must be removed, because this foam not only spoils the appearance of your dish, but can also cause premature souring. However, one should not rush and try to remove the foam as soon as it appears. Just before the end of cooking, let your jam boil as hard as possible and immediately remove from heat, then wait a couple of minutes for the berries to settle. Now feel free to take a slotted spoon in your hands and carefully remove all the foam that has formed. This method will allow you to most thoroughly remove even the slightest residues of foam, while not damaging the berries, and, which is also important, will save you time and effort.

5. It is equally important and correct to track the end of the cooking process. After all, undercooked jam can ferment or turn sour, and overcooked jam will surely be sugar-coated and cannot please you with its bright taste and aroma. In order to correctly determine the moment when your jam is already completely ready, it is enough to use simple tips. The jam is ready when the foam does not diverge along the edges of the pelvis, but gathers closer to the center. In the finished jam, the berries are evenly distributed in the syrup, and are not collected at the surface. A drop of ready-made jam syrup placed on a saucer does not spread, but retains its shape. If all these signs coincide, rather remove your jam from the fire, it is already completely ready!

6. Let's try to cook delicious, bright and aromatic jam from garden strawberries, sometimes unfairly called strawberries. Rinse one kilogram of strawberries carefully, taking care not to damage the berries, and remove the green sepals. Let the water drain and place your strawberries in a jam bowl. Add one kilogram of sugar to the berries and put them in a cool place for several hours until the strawberries let out the juice. Then place the bowl on low heat and bring the strawberries and sugar to a boil while stirring gently but thoroughly. As soon as your jam boils, immediately remove it from the heat and let it brew for 8 hours. Then boil the jam until cooked on the lowest heat, being careful not to boil too much. The jam prepared in this way fully preserves the bright taste and aroma of the berries, and the syrup is clean and completely transparent.

7. It is even easier to cook delicious, aromatic and healthy raspberry jam. Carefully sort out one kilogram of raspberries, remove twigs and sepals and rinse gently. Transfer the berries to a deep saucepan and add one kilogram of sugar. Leave the raspberries with sugar for 4 - 5 hours, then pour the resulting syrup into a bowl for cooking jam, bring to a boil and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Transfer your berries to the finished syrup, bring to a boil and cook over medium heat for 5 to 10 minutes, gently shaking the basin. Remove from heat, let cool slightly, remove the resulting foam and pour the jam into the jars. Such jam fully retains the taste and all the beneficial properties of fresh raspberries, but it should be stored in the refrigerator.

8. The recipe for delicious lingonberry and apple jam is offered by M. Syrnikov. Sort out one kilogram of lingonberries, rinse and dry slightly. Peel three sour apples, core and cut into 8 pieces each. Boil 1 kg sugar syrup. sugar and ½ cup water, as described above. Pour berries and apple slices into boiling syrup, bring to a boil again, then remove from heat and leave for 2 hours. Place the cooled jam on the fire again, bring to a boil and cool again for two hours. Then put the jam on low heat and cook until tender, gently shaking the basin and avoiding burning. Cool the finished jam and place in jars.

9. Delicious gooseberry jam will require painstaking preparation, but will reward you with its exquisite aroma and amazingly beautiful color. 800 gr. Rinse green unripe gooseberries thoroughly, cut off the branches and remnants of dried flowers, make a small incision on each berry with a sharp knife and carefully remove the seeds. Boil 2 liters of water in a deep saucepan, add 50 - 100 gr. fresh cherry leaves, cook for 10 minutes, remove from heat and immediately add prepared gooseberries. Cover the pot with a lid and let sit for 12 hours. Then pour the resulting broth into a separate bowl and remove the cherry leaves. Place 1 ½ kg in a bowl for making jam. sugar, add 1 cup of the saved broth and cook a thick syrup. When the syrup is ready, add the berries to it, bring to a boil again and cook over low heat for 15 - 20 minutes, gently shaking the basin and avoiding burning. Cool the finished jam, remove the foam and pour your jam into the jars.

10. Indian cuisine invites us to taste original spicy and savory rhubarb and ginger jam. 400 gr. rhubarb stalks, rinse, peel from the rough skin and cut into thin slices. Place the rhubarb in a cooking pot, add 3 tbsp. tablespoons of grated fresh ginger, 1 ½ cups of sugar and 1 teaspoon of chopped lemon zest. Place the pot on the lowest heat and melt the sugar. Make sure that the sugar does not burn! When the sugar is completely melted and the rhubarb gives juice, turn the heat up and bring your jam to a boil. Reduce heat to low again and cook the jam for 20 minutes until tender. Cool the finished jam and place in jars. Store in the refrigerator.

And on the pages of "Culinary Eden" you can always find many new and proven recipes that will surely help you find the answer to the question of how to make jam.

Cooking jam is one of the most common ways of processing and harvesting fruits and berries at home. Jam is considered good, properly cooked if the shape of the berries has not changed, only their color has become darker and the aroma of fresh fruits has been preserved.

To keep the jam for a long time, it is necessary to observe the established rate of sugar consumption when cooking it. If you add less sugar to the fruits and berries than it should be according to the recipe, or do not bring the cooking to the end, such a jam may turn out to be unstable during storage: it will ferment and become completely unusable.

Spoilage of jam, despite a sufficient amount of sugar, can also occur due to packaging in a damp, poorly washed and undried container and subsequent storage in a damp, unventilated room.

There are many ways to make jam, based on the characteristics of different fruits and berries. At the same time, there are general techniques and requirements for making jam from any raw material.

For cooking jam, it is recommended to use pots with a capacity of 2 to 6 kg, made of stainless steel or brass. It is not recommended to use pots of larger capacity, since during cooking delicate berries, such as raspberries, strawberries, can be crushed in them, and the jam will turn out to be boiled. In addition, when a large volume of berries is boiled, the boiling time is significantly lengthened, which also negatively affects the quality of the jam.

The best containers for packaging and storing ready-made jam are glass jars with a capacity of 0.5; one; 2 p. Before packing, the cans must be washed in hot water, preferably with soda ash or other detergent, until completely clean, then rinsed with clean boiling water and turned upside down to drain the water. After that, the cans are dried on the stove until moisture is completely removed. Jars must be completely dry and hot immediately before filling.

Regardless of the heat source used, the jam should be cooked no more than 30-40 minutes, excluding the time it is left to stand. In the first 5-10 minutes from the moment of boiling, the jam should be cooked over low heat, since during this period the greatest foaming is observed, and the contents of the basin may boil away. With a decrease in the intensity of foam formation and as the syrup thickens, the fire must be increased, making sure that the jam is cooked evenly and does not overflow over the edge of the basin.

The syrup containing the fruit or berries must be transparent and colored in the same color as the particular fruit or berries. It should not have any brownish or brownish tint. The latter indicates that the jam was overexposed on fire or boiled over high heat.

The syrup should be thick enough so that it does not run off quickly from the surface of the spoon. The jam should have an equal amount of berries and syrup. An excess or insufficient amount of syrup indicates a violation of the rules for making jam.

Fruits and berries, which are intended for cooking jam, are harvested on the day of cooking in sunny and dry weather and after they have dried from dew. It is not recommended to pick berries in rainy weather. It is important that the berries and fruits are of the same ripeness. Unripe and overripe fruits and berries are unsuitable for making jam. Raspberries and strawberries should be collected in sieves or wicker baskets with a capacity of no more than 2-3 kg.

Raspberries and strawberries, collected from the backyard and without any contamination, do not need to be washed. In all other cases, they are washed, like other types of fruits and berries. Washing must be done after sorting, and some berries and after cleaning (for example, after removing sepals from strawberries, stalks from raspberries and cups from currants) in cold clean running water.

Delicate berries should be rinsed for 1-2 minutes under running water or by repeated immersion in water in a dish with a lattice bottom (basket, colander). After washing, the berries and fruits must be kept for 15-20 minutes in a sieve so that they drain water and dry out a little.

The most common is to boil fruits and berries in sugar syrup. To prepare the latter, a predetermined amount of granulated sugar is poured into an enamel pan in a clean brass or other basin and poured with cold or hot water, after which the dishes are placed on medium heat and stir with a spoon or slotted spoon until the sugar is completely dissolved. Then the syrup must be brought to a boil. After a 1-2 minute boil, the dishes are removed from the heat and the syrup is considered ready to use.

Both the quality of the cooked jam and its ability for long-term storage depend on the correctly selected ratio of the parts of sugar and berries or fruits. In the absence of scales, you can determine the weight of sugar by volume: one glass contains 200 g of sugar, in a liter jar - 800 g, in a half-liter jar - 400 g.

Before boiling, you should prepare the necessary dishes: a deep foam plate, a tablespoon or a slotted spoon. After everything is cooked, put the bowl with the syrup on a moderate heat, carefully pour a measured amount of berries into it and stir them well with the syrup. For this, the pelvis can be grasped with both hands and shaken in a circular motion. The syrup must cover the fruit or berries. The berries, drenched in hot syrup, are left for 3-4 hours. If you start cooking the jam right away, and even over high heat, the syrup will not have time to soak into the berries, and the latter will wrinkle and become very boiled.

Berries and fruits with a hard skin (gooseberries, ranet, plums) are pierced with a sharp wooden stick so that the syrup is better absorbed. Black currants must first be blanched, that is, dipped in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, and then cooled. If this is not done, the berries in cold jam will turn out to be too dry.

It is necessary to carefully monitor the cooking process and ensure that the jam does not boil away. The fire must be kept uniform all the time, not very strong, but also not very weak, adjusting it depending on the foam formation. At the beginning of cooking, after 3-5 minutes from the moment the jam boils, the bowl should be removed from the heat, shaken slightly with both hands, removed from the surface of the foam and put back on the fire. Cooking continues until the foam appears again, which is removed again.

This is done until the copious foaming stops. After this happens, and the mass begins to boil more slowly with the same fire power, this means that the jam is nearing the end. This moment must be very carefully monitored, since otherwise the jam will be overcooked.

To avoid burning when cooking, the bowl should be turned frequently and very carefully stir the berries or fruits with a slotted spoon or spoon.

Delicate berries - raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, small plums, cherries with pits, currants - are cooked in several stages, with breaks of 8-10 hours. For the first time, the syrup with berries is only brought to a boil and put on hold. The second time, the jam is boiled for 10-15 minutes and kept again. Only the third time can it be brought to readiness over high heat. Strawberries, cherries, cherries and pitted plums can be cooked in one go - first over low, then over high heat.

Easy-boiling berries can be cooked in the following way. After lightly boiling in syrup, carefully remove the berries with a slotted spoon or strainer, and continue to cook the syrup. Not long before the end of cooking, the berries are again dipped in syrup, brought to a boil again and then sealed.

It is important to be able to determine the degree of readiness of the jam. The following methods for determining the readiness of jam by external signs are quite common.
1. A little syrup is taken from the basin with a spoon, and if it flows down from the spoon in a thick thread, not a thin and thin thread, it means that the jam is ready.
2. The cooled sample is carefully poured from a teaspoon onto a plate. If the syrup has not spread, the jam can be considered ready.
3. Jam can also be considered ready if, after stopping boiling, its surface in the basin quickly becomes covered with a thin wrinkled film.

If during cooking the jam remains liquid for a long time, which is often the case, for example, with cherry jam, you can add a little lemon juice or apple jelly to it. After that, the jam will quickly thicken.

After the end of cooking, the jam is immediately poured into a clean, pre-prepared dish - aluminum and enamel bowls or pans without cracks. In no case should you use cast-iron or iron dishes to stand the jam. Since in such dishes the color of the jam deteriorates.

Before packaging, the jam is usually cooled for 8-10 hours. Some types of jam, in which the fruits are quickly saturated with sugar (black currants, strawberries, cranberries, etc.), can also be packaged hot without prior aging.

For long-term storage, it is best to pack the jam in a glass or checked clay container of small capacity - 0.5; 1 and 2 liters. After the jam has completely cooled down, the container is tightly sealed.

The kernels of the kernels of apricots, cherries, plums and peaches contain a substance that in the body, by decomposition, turns into a strong poison - hydrocyanic acid.

With long-term storage of jam made from fruits with seeds, its amount increases, therefore it is not recommended to store such jam for more than a year. If the jam has been stored longer than this period, the syrup is drained, the seeds are removed from the fruit, the pulp is mixed with the syrup and boiled for 30-40 minutes, after which the danger of poisoning is removed.

It is necessary to store the jam at a temperature of 10-15 ° C.

If water gets into the finished jam, it is undercooked, or if there is not enough sugar in it, the jam may ferment. In this case, it needs to be digested by adding a little sugar.

If the jam becomes moldy, then it is either poorly packaged or stored in a too damp room. You need to remove the mold, boil the jam and put it in another, drier place.

Jam in Ancient Russia was called sweets prepared by cooking berries, fruits, nuts, some vegetables (carrots, pumpkin, zucchini, green tomatoes, turnips) and flowers (rose petals, rose hips, dandelion flowers, etc.) in a sweet environment (honey , molasses, sugar syrup). Abroad, the term "jam" denotes only Russian national methods of candling. In France, jams are prepared, in England fruits and berries are processed into jams, in the Middle East - into delicious figs, in Ukraine they have always prepared jam, and in Central Asia such delicacies are called "cue". However, whole books can be written about jam. In this article, you will find detailed information on cooking delicious homemade jamas our ancestors always did.

What are the features of russian jam? And how does it stand out among the whole variety of sweet homemade preparations. The syrup of Russian jam should be thick, always transparent, the color of fruits and berries does not change during cooking. The berries are evenly distributed over the syrup - they should not settle to the bottom, not float. Unfortunately, not everyone manages to get such high-quality jam at home. Many housewives do not know anything about the rules. making jam, or they combine different cooking techniques for this sweet dish - they get something like a "hybrid" of jam and jam or jam and compote, etc. This leads to a product with an irregular consistency, bad taste, a product that is easily perishable - jam souring, candying, rancidity or mold.

Making jam at home:

At the first stage preparation of raw materials is in progress. The correct jam is always prepared from a whole uncrushed berry or fruit (fruit), and in the case of chopping, cutting is carried out in large slices (or halves) - this distinguishes Russian jam from jams, marmalades, marmalade, etc. Berries or fruits for jam are best taken incomplete maturity. Overripe fruits are very easy to boil. Too unripe - will not give a bright taste and aroma. The fruit should be of practically the same size and ripeness.

For most berries and fruits, in addition to simple cleaning of dirt, herbs and cuttings, careful preliminary processing is required: they are washed in several cold waters, blanched, pricked, and pitted. All these operations are carried out to preserve the shape of the berry or fruit, its color, to prevent overcooking, better impregnation with sugar syrup and to minimize the formation of foam during cooking.

How and how much to cook jam

Next stage making homemade jam - cooking itself. The jam must be cooked first over high heat, and then on low, with the obligatory removal of the foam. Why is it so important to remove foam? Foam is formed by the coagulation of proteins. Due to its properties, foam easily absorbs all impurities, so it must be removed from the jam - we want it to be stored for a long time. You don't need to stir the jam! only light shaking of the basin or pan is allowed just before the end of cooking.

To make the jam right, it is necessary to remember the importance of balancing the processes of penetration of the syrup into the berry and the release of berry juice into the syrup. The jam should not be overheated, since in this case the juice inside the fruit will boil, and the penetration of sugar syrup into the fruit will become impossible. This can lead to the wrong consistency of the jam - the fruits are not saturated with syrup and float, and are not distributed over the syrup, as we would hoel for our homemade jam. If the juice from the fruits comes out too quickly, they do not have time to soak in the syrup and are deformed, wrinkled. It is in order to avoid upsetting the balance of mutual diffusion of fruit juice and sugar syrup that fruits are sometimes blanched, pricked, peeled, multi-stage cooking is used, which means heating the jam for 10-15 minutes, then cooling for 2-3 hours and subsequent cooking. The recommended total cooking time should be no more than 30 minutes.

Overcooked jam darkens, loses its taste, and, after all, it is during cooking jam so they strive to preserve the taste and aroma of the raw materials. To reduce the cooking time, sometimes the fruits are not boiled at all - they are simply poured over with hot sugar syrup. If the fruits are well saturated with syrup, there is no special need for multiple boiling - boil in one step, no more than 40 minutes. In some recipes, the berries are pre-aged in sugar for up to 8 hours. For making jam, an enamel basin with low walls is used. It is not recommended to process more than 2 kg of fruits or berries at a time.