Autumn in my house is all about jams and chutney. Living in the middle of nowhere has its advantages. My house is surrounded by fields bordered by hedgerows laden with fruits. But we do also grow some of our own. There is a couple of apple trees in the orchard, rows of raspberries, currant bushes scattered around the garden and a fig tree growing up against the shed.

This week is all about figs as there has been a glut of glut in the house this year. We chopped our tree right back last Autumn and have really seen the benefits this year. So far we have collected well over 3 kg of figs this year all of which have been chopped and stored in the freezer waiting to turned into preserves. This glut has meant that we get to branch out from last years attempt at fig chutney, which was so very good and experiment with this fig jam that I found on the guardian website as well.

As always happens in this house I didn’t stick to the recipe. My mother has been making jams and chutney for years and her casual attitude to swapping out ingredients has definitely been passed on to me. This is actually the first ever batch that I have made entirely by myself and I had to banish her from the kitchen in order to have complete control. She does not share her space well at all!!!

For this recipe I used Demerara granulated brown sugar, swapped earl grey tea with lapsang souchong, as we had no earl grey, made the pectin from a mix of cooking and eating apples we had lying around and put the apple through a sieve so really is was just apple puree rather than pectin stock.

This jam tastes so good! Its super sweet but in a fruity way rather than store-bought jam which just tastes of sugar. So far I’ve just tried it on some home-made soda bread but it would go fantastically with something savory like cheese. Really need to get a hold of some really nice strong goats cheese to try it with.

I also couldn’t resist making some crochet lid covers for the jars. Jam and chutney are our traditional house Christmas gifts when visiting people and I’ve been experimenting with new ways to jazz them up a little. The colours really remind me of the fresh fruit. And who can resist the simplicity of a simple cream one?

xxx

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