Jam... A symbol of childhood! Aromatic, fragrant, sweet and viscous. Which you can secretly pull from a jar, smearing the tip of your nose and ears, and then, when the jam accidentally ends, without blinking a single eye, firmly prove that nooo, I didn’t even try that jam! Jam... Smelling of summer, countryside, vacation, open spaces and freedom... Even if you are among those who do not like this delicacy, you still take out a jar from time to time and, having opened it, spread it with pleasure on a piece of warm bun and wash down with cold fat milk ... Do you know at the same time,? Have you mastered the basic techniques, passed the main stages of training?

From bash-org:
My mother-in-law is a mathematician, recently retired and took up dacha preparations.
The stickers on the jam jars are delightful.
"Raspberry 35% + currant 65%", or "strawberry 60% + raspberry 40%".
I haven't read the lettuce jars yet, but I think I saw the sign of the natural logarithm there.

Let's make an assumption - any standard jam, be it strawberry or cherry, apricot or currant, is cooked according to the same principles. Of course, there are variations and options, there are non-classical performances and additives, there are recipes with tricks and subtleties, however, if we are talking about the most common grandmother's jam from the far corner of the pantry, then you can cook it following the general rules. Let's talk about them, shall we? Under the cut - 10 tips,.

1. Choose berries and fruits

Berries and fruits that you are going to turn into jam must be perfect. It only at first glance seems that you can stuff anything into a jar, there, they say, everything will be mixed up and nothing will be visible. However, one should clearly realize: from anything, anything will turn out. If you are aiming to cook a beautiful and tasty jam, the raw materials for it should only be of high quality. Whole berries, not crushed fruit, not spoiled, and by no means those that are about to go bad. Only fresh, whole, firm and beautiful.

2. Wash and dry

With rare exceptions (for example, raspberries), the berries and fruits that you plan to use for jam should be thoroughly washed and dried. Excess water is excess liquid in the jam, which means a minus in taste. Everyone likes it when the syrup flows down a spoon with a thick slow drop - to get such a consistency, you also need to make sure that the berry that you put in the jam is dry.

3. Cover with sugar

You can, of course, make jam by pouring berries and fruits with sugar syrup, but still the classic version is ordinary granulated sugar. Pour the raw materials evenly and wait until all the sugar (well, or almost all) has dissolved. Only after that you can start cooking jam.

4. Keep the proportion

The classic proportion when making jam is 1:1. You can vary, but you should be clearly aware that a decrease in the amount of sugar will inevitably lead to the fact that the jam will be thinner than the standard version, and an increase threatens to sugar the jam during storage.

5. Remove foam

It is believed that along with the foam, small debris rises up, which you may not have washed out of berries and fruits, and extra impurities, which are abundant in industrial sugar. For this reason (cleansing and increasing the shelf life), it is recommended to remove the foam from the jam. I’ll tell you a secret, I almost never do this - firstly, I’m sure of the quality of my berries (I usually use homemade raw materials), and secondly, I think that the amount of impurities that get from sugar into foam is so minimal that it doesn’t worth the effort. The aesthetic side does not bother me at all in this case, since after the jam is ready and poured into jars for storage, no traces of foam are visible at all.

6. Cook - step by step!

Usually, the jam is cooked in three stages: slowly brought to a boil, boiled on a minimum heat for 5-15 minutes, left to cool completely and thoroughly (usually overnight). If, after three approaches, the jam does not seem ready to you, boil it for the 4th time, be sure to keep it until it cools completely.

7. Check for readiness

The readiness of jam is checked in various ways. You can apply the syrup in a thin layer on a saucer and after a couple of minutes draw a strip in the middle with a spoon or fingernail - if the white trace does not disappear, the jam is ready. There is a way to check with a drop - applied to the nail surface, it should not spread. In general, there are a lot of options, the main thing is to understand the general principle: the readiness of jam is determined by the readiness of its syrup.

8. If the jam turned out to be liquid, do not be upset

Alas, sometimes it happens that, even following all the rules and recommendations, the jam does not want to thicken. Don't worry, it happens. On sale there are a lot of natural thickeners based on fruit pectin - a substance that is responsible for the fact that the jam thickens. Run to the store, add it to the jam and don't tell anyone - believe me, no one will guess anything.

9. Pour into perfectly clean jars

The finished jam in hot (almost boiling form) is poured into sterilized jars and covered with sterilized lids, after which they are cleaned under several blankets and left to cool completely (at least a day).

10. Store properly

Some housewives do not like to close the jam for the winter because this process is quite laborious: often the jam has to be cooked for more than one hour, sometimes in several steps. If you don’t want to waste your time, and you don’t mind eating jam, try cooking quick jam.

Quick jam (sometimes also called five-minute jam) is prepared, of course, not for five minutes, but all the same, it will take not several hours to cook it, but half an hour or an hour at most (including not only cooking, but also preparing fruits and berries).

In such a jam, berries and fruits retain their taste, color, aroma, shape and vitamins. But you have to store quick jam in a cold place so that it does not deteriorate, and the shelf life will be less than that of jam that has been boiled for several hours.

Raspberry five-minute jam

Raspberries are such a tender berry that you won’t be able to cook it for a long time with all your desire - it will quickly boil soft and lose its “presentation”. But a quick five-minute raspberry jam is what you need. To prepare it, we need:

• 1 kg raspberries
• 1 kg sugar

Wash raspberries and pat dry. We take an enameled basin, put raspberries in it and sprinkle with sugar. We let the berries stand for several hours so that they release the juice. Then we put the basin on the fire and bring the berries with juice and sugar to a boil, not forgetting to stir gently. We boil the jam for 5 minutes (hence the name - five minutes) and pour it hot into sterilized jars.

Five-minute blackcurrant jam

Quick currant jam is as easy to cook as its raspberry counterpart. For cooking five-minute blackcurrant jam, we will need standard ingredients:

• 1.5 kg sugar
• 1 kg blackcurrant
• 1.5 st. water

First, let's prepare the berries. For cooking jam, only ripe and large currants are suitable. We wash the berries with cold water and sort it out, remove the dry cups of flowers and stalks. Then the currants should be blanched in boiling water (2-3 minutes) or hot water at a temperature of 90-95 ° (3-5 minutes).

Prepare sugar syrup from water and sugar and bring to a boil. We lower the prepared berries into the hot syrup, bring to a boil again and boil for 5 minutes. Pour the finished jam into prepared jars and cork with pre-boiled lids.

Quick grapefruit jam

If you like an exotic jam with an unusual taste, you can try making a quick mint red grapefruit jam. It doesn't even need to be boiled on the stove - it cooks perfectly in the microwave. To prepare it, we will take:

• 2 red grapefruits
• 200 g sugar
• sprig of fresh mint or lemon balm
• 0.5 tsp pink peppercorns

Wash the grapefruits thoroughly and remove the zest from them with a sharp knife. It is not necessary to remove the entire zest, we will need about one and a half teaspoons - for aroma (after all, odorous essential oils are concentrated in the zest).

We peel the grapefruits, divide them into slices and remove the white film from each slice, leaving only the pulp. We divide each slice into three pieces. We put the peeled grapefruit pulp in a glass microwave bowl, add sugar and zest and put in the microwave. It takes about 13 minutes to cook the jam (cooking time may vary depending on the desired consistency of the jam).

Pour hot jam into a jar. Add pink pepper (optional - for lovers of a light spicy taste) and decorate the jam with a sprig of mint. You need to store it in the refrigerator.

Do you have any favorite quick jam recipes? Share them with our readers!

quick jam, it is also called "five minutes", can be prepared from a wide variety of berries and fruits, for example, - an ideal confirmation of this. It is prepared quickly for five minutes, the cooking time corresponds to the name, it turns out to be very tasty, and the amount of useful components in it is much higher than in jam, which has been subjected to long hours of heat treatment.

quick jam recipe from wild strawberries with blueberries. Ingredients:
. Strawberries - 1.4 kg;
. Blueberries - 200 gr.;
. Sugar (preferably brown sugar) - 1.5-2 kg.

How to make quick berry jam:
Sort and wash the berries with extreme care, put them in a colander (care is needed so as not to crush the berries, therefore, so that the jam turns out to be beautiful, transparent, with whole fruits).

Place clean and dried berries in a glass bowl, cover with sugar, leave for 9-10 hours for juice release. After a specified period of time, a sufficient amount of juice will stand out, then the workpiece must be carefully transferred to the cooking container, placed on medium heat, boil for five minutes from the moment of boiling. Next, the jam should cool down, after which the boiling of the berries should be repeated three to four times, also for five minutes. Thanks to this method of cooking, the berries are saturated with sugar syrup and retain a holistic appearance. Arrange hot jam in sterilized jars, roll up. This cooking method is also suitable for strawberries and raspberries.

And without them, you can cook according to the following recipe - ingredients:
. Cherry - 1 kg;
. Sugar sand (brown) - 400 - 500 gr.;
. Purified water - one glass.

How to quickly make jam?

Sort the berries, wash under running water, if desired, carefully remove the stone (special tools are sold for this or you could use a skewer). Prepare a syrup from sugar and water in the proportion indicated above, bring to a very low boil, add cherries, boil for five minutes (you can even say not boil, but sweat the specified time), arrange in sterilized jars, roll up.

How to quickly cook jam, jam, confiture and jelly in the usual way

So, we are faced with the task: how to cook jam and not grow old. A classic jam with multiple brews and many hours of aging can cost us, if not several years of life, then several days, that's for sure. Of course, a delicious delicacy with plump berries or pieces of fruit, as if floating in a transparent syrup, and a heterogeneous jelly-like mass of sweet fast food are much more than the two big Odessa differences we all know. But, unlike junk food, quick jam can be beneficial, especially when sugar is limited. Which is basically impossible for a classic jam. In addition, there is a high probability that at least some of the vitamins will survive in the quickly cooked jam. As for jams, marmalades and jellies, according to the classics, it is customary to cook them not as long as jam. Nevertheless, why not try to do it even faster?! In any case, no matter how long it takes us to cook jam and other sweets, it must be carried out according to the same rules.

How to choose dishes for cooking sweet express blanks on the stove. You will need a wide low pan (basin). The dishes can be enameled, but best of all - stainless steel. In enamelware, a sweet fruit or berry mass can burn, although if you watch it carefully, this may not happen. If your grandmother used to make jam in a classic copper basin (these legendary jam containers were made in the form of ordinary basins and large frying pans with wooden handles), you can continue the family tradition, just make sure that your basin is not covered with oxides. If this is the case, first clean the basin, and then start cooking. Aluminum utensils cannot be used, and not only for cooking jam. The size of the dishes is also important. If the pan is too small, the jam may boil away, and if it is too large, then the syrup, spilling over the bottom, will quickly thicken and the fruits will remain undercooked.

How to prepare raw materials for sweet express blanks. Far from everything that is usually used to make jam can serve as a raw material for sweet express blanks. First of all, this is the most delicate raw material: berries, some fruits, citrus fruits, as well as edible flower petals. In order for your jams, jams, marmalades not only to cook quickly, but also to turn out tasty, beautiful and well stored, the raw materials for them must be properly prepared. How to do this, look above in the section "We will prepare raw materials quickly and efficiently." Although such delicate raw materials as berries may require a special approach from you. In any case, the success of this event, as always, will ensure strict adherence to certain rules.

Rule 1. If you personally pick berries for your sweet preparations, wash them as little as possible before cooking, and better not mine at all. If the berries are dusty, brush off the dust with a soft brush. Berries bought on the market or in a store, rinse in the most thorough way, changing the water several times.

Rule 2. If you are going to make jam from very large strawberries, strawberries and raspberries, do not tear off their stalks. It is better to cut the green leaves with scissors, leaving a short stem, so the berries do not lose their elasticity during cooking.

And my advice to you! When you buy berries for your sweet preparations in the market, it will not be superfluous to at least have an idea how many of them fit in a liter jar - the favorite container of the grannies selling there. Remember, a liter jar holds: 500-600 g of strawberries, 500 g of raspberries, 600-700 g of currants, 650 g of blueberries, 600 g of lingonberries, 600 g of cranberries, 800 g of cherries, 800 g of cherry plum or small plums, and not a kilogram at all, as these naive old ladies usually claim.

How to pack and cork sweet express blanks. Ready-made jams, jams and marmalades cooked by express methods should be packed in hot sterilized jars only by hot filling. To do this, pour the hot, often boiling mass immediately after cooking into heated sterilized jars, preferably wrapped in a damp towel. A towel is needed so that after filling the can, it can quickly wipe the edges of the neck of the can - this is important to ensure the tightness of the closure. After that, cover the jars with sterilized lids and roll them up, then turn them upside down and leave to cool. In some cases, the jars must also be wrapped for self-sterilization and left to cool completely. Store cooled jars at room temperature, preferably in a dark place. It is possible to cork such blanks with polyethylene lids only if, after cooling, they will be stored in the refrigerator for a short time.

Every housewife dreams of making the most delicious jam. So that guests who come to the house admire her skills, and family members always ask for more. Cooking delicious jam is not so difficult if you know a couple of tricks. How to cook jam, I will tell in this article.

First of all, you need to stock up on sugar. Canning with sugar is the most popular, simple, and safe method. The sugar concentration should be high. If the syrup is thick, your jam, jam, marmalade, confiture or candied fruit will not spoil for a long time, they will delight you and your family all the long winter. If you do not like too sweet or save on granulated sugar, you must carefully pasteurize the jam so that it does not ferment.

What to make jam from

Traditionally, housewives make jam in late summer and autumn, when the fruits are ripe. What to do with too large a crop of apples, plums, and currants? Well, of course, make jam from them! But even in the middle of winter or spring, you can always treat yourself to a small jar of jam by buying seasonal fruits in the store. For example, it’s nice to make confiture from oranges with cinnamon and ginger before the New Year holidays. Such confiture can be put on a festive table in a beautiful rosette or given as a gift to friends.

In general, jam can be cooked from anything. The most popular types are raspberry (it has a lot of vitamin C, which helps with colds) or strawberry jam. You can make jam from pears, peaches, apricots. Berry jams from blueberries, lingonberries, cranberries, blueberries, cloudberries are not only extremely tasty, but also very healthy. And there are even exotic recipes, such as feijoa jam!

How to make delicious jam

By and large, it doesn’t matter what exactly you cook from, because the cooking methods are similar. And yet there are some nuances. Jam made from large fruits, such as peaches or pears, is best cooked when they are just a little underripe. Whereas for jam from cherries or plums, slightly overripe fruits filled with juice are suitable.

Before you cook jam, you should clean the workplace. You will need jars with lids, a clean towel, berries or fruit, bowls, sugar, and a measuring cup. First of all, you should thoroughly wash the jars and lids and put them aside to dry.

Then you should prepare your fruits. If you are going to make jam from cherries, plums or apricots, you should remove the seeds from the fruit. From apples you need to cut the peel and cut the core, the same applies to pears. The hardest thing is with orange jam. You need to peel the oranges, but do not throw away the peels, as the zest is added to the jam and gives it a special piquant taste. Then you need to separate the orange pulp. This is a very time consuming process, but believe me, orange jam is worth it.

Next, you should decide what exactly you want to cook: jam, confiture or jam. Will you leave the fruit whole to float in the syrup, or will you grind it into a fruit puree? It is easiest to prepare fruit puree with a mixer, but you can also simply grate the fruit or soften it with a crush. If you want fruits or berries to remain whole, you will have to carefully monitor them during cooking so that they do not fall apart and wrinkle.

The first step to delicious jam is making sugar syrup. You will need a measuring cup. Measure the amount of fruit with the amount of granulated sugar. Usually they take a ratio of 1: 1, that is, a kilogram of granulated sugar is spent per kilogram of fruit. But you can increase the amount of sugar to taste, especially if your fruits or berries are acidic. Sugar should be poured into a saucepan, necessarily enameled, filled with hot water and wait until the sugar dissolves and the water boils.

A good syrup is thick, with a slight caramel tint. As soon as the syrup is ready, you should pour your fruits into the pan and reduce the heat to a minimum. To get the best result, you need to make sure that the jam does not boil or boil away, but quietly boiled in its own juice. The average cooking time for jam is 30-40 minutes.

Raspberry jam

Do you know how to make raspberry jam? Such a delicacy is loved by everyone, it is useful and does not need special recommendations.

raspberry jam recipe

• For 1 kg of raspberries, 1-1.5 kg of sugar and 2 glasses of water will be required.

We sort the berries, to remove the larvae of the raspberry beetle, immerse them in a one percent solution of table salt for 3 minutes, rinse with water. Pour in hot syrup, leave for 3 hours, then remove from the syrup, throwing it into a colander. Boil, cool the syrup, lower the raspberries, cook over low heat.

You can cook raspberry jam in another way. Pour the prepared raspberries with sugar, taking half the norm of sugar, keep for 6-8 hours in the cold so that the juice appears. Drain the juice, add the rest of the sugar, heat to a boil so that the sugar is completely dissolved. Cool the resulting syrup a little, spread the berries, cook until tender.

In order for the raspberries not to lose their color and not fall apart, we cook them in several stages. Pour the berries with syrup, bring to a boil, cook for 5 minutes over low heat, next time increase the time to 8-10 minutes, in the third dose, until tender. A jar of raspberry jam will decorate any tea table.

Blackcurrant jam

There are several cooking methods, I will share my two recipes.

In boiling syrup (1.3 kg of sugar and 2 cups of water), lower the clean sorted currants, shake the basin for the same settling of berries, do not touch for 5-6 hours, then cook in one go.

The second way is blanching, lower the berries for 2 minutes. into boiling water. The peel becomes more permeable to sugar, the jam is of better quality. Pour the prepared currants with syrup (1.5 kg of sugar and 2 cups of water), cook immediately until cooked, periodically removing from heat for 3-5 minutes.

Assorted jam

Very tasty jam is made from various types of berries.

Raspberry jam with blueberries—the fruits of these plants ripen at the same time, this gives us a wonderful opportunity to cook them together, it turns out to taste amazing.

• For 1 kg. raspberries need 2 cups of water, 200 gr. blueberries, 1-1.5 kg. Sahara. Pour over the sorted raspberries and blueberries with hot syrup, do not touch for 3-4 hours, then cook until ready.

The following recipe is very useful, with a unique taste and aroma, but you will also have to work a little.

• black and red currants, apples - 500 gr,
• sugar - 500 kg,
• walnuts (kernels) - 2 cups,
• honey - 1.5 kg.

Sort the currant berries, rinse, cook over low heat in a glass of water, tightly closing the lid. The berries should become soft. Next, knead the berries, wipe through a large hair sieve. Boil honey with sugar in a basin, add apples, previously cut into slices, peeled and chopped nut kernels, and pureed currants. Cook for one hour over low heat, stirring gently. It turns out very tasty!

Other formulations

For example, when making strawberry or blueberry jam, raw berries are covered with sugar and wait until the sugar absorbs the juice. Then syrup is boiled from this sweet juice, and then the berries are poured with hot syrup and boiled literally for 5-10 minutes. But this method is only suitable for very juicy berries.

If you want your fruits, such as cherries, not to wrinkle during cooking, you need to make sure that they soak everything evenly with syrup. Berries that are not soaked are immediately visible, they float to the surface. You need to make the smallest fire and stir all the time. Some also pierce the berries before boiling so that they soak up the syrup more quickly.

When cooking jam, foam forms on its surface. It must be removed, otherwise the jam will turn out cloudy and ugly. However, it is not at all necessary to throw away the foam, it is quite possible to eat it with tea, especially children love to eat foam.

Jam readiness

How do you know when the jam is ready? Modern housewives use timers, but you can also determine by eye. The jam is ready when the froth collects only in the middle of the pot or basin in which you are simmering. The fruit floats evenly in the syrup, and the jam is quite thick and sticky. If you drop a drop of jam into the center of the saucer, and it does not spread much, then the jam is definitely ready and you need to turn off the stove.

You can start eating your prepared treat right away or keep it for a long time. The surest way to preserve jam is hot pasteurization. To do this, you need to place pre-washed jars and lids for 15 minutes in a hot oven, and then take them out in mittens and wrap them in a clean towel so that germs do not get inside.

When the jam is ready, it is immediately poured hot into these jars and tightly closed with a lid, so that a vacuum is formed. Then the jars are turned upside down and allowed to stand for a while until they cool. Jam packed in this way will surely survive the winter, will not burst and will not ferment.

There is another way. The already cooled jam is laid out in clean jars, a piece of parchment equal to the neck of the jar is placed on top and moistened with alcohol. The top of the jar is covered with cellophane, gauze or parchment and tied with a string. This method of preservation is more popular in the West.

A little final tip: better choose smaller banks. A five-liter jar of jam is very difficult to eat quickly, and it can go bad if opened. It is better to take liter or half-liter jars, and let there be a lot of them. Such jars can be eaten by a large company in one evening, or you can give them as a gift by tying them with a pretty ribbon. You need to store jam in a cool, dry place: in a closet, cellar or in a refrigerator on the lower shelves. Bon Appetit!