Kitchen Garden Forum

Help please
I made some apple and blackberry jam yesterday it set solid is there anyway I could thin it down so that its spreadable, would adding more blackberries work?.

bren

I think you are going to have to use it up in other ways.
Try warming though with a little water or fruit juice and make a sauce for puddings, ice cream etc.

If you add more blackberries you will have to reboil and I'm not sure that would work.

Beryl.

Got one of those mandolin slicers?

Hello Bren
What you have done is either to boil off too much water during the cooking process or perhaps there was not sufficient liquid to start with. It is really too tricky to add water to your jam, then reboil and cook to the setting point - you will probably end up with a brown mess because of the prolonged cooking time.
The best way to get the setting point is measure it with a jam thermometer. The temperature you need is 105°C. As the jam comes to the boil the temperature will be less than this but it will rise slowly as more water is driven off during boiling. Stop when you get to the right temperature.
Hope this helps.
John

PS Boil the jam hard because with longer cooking times the sugar will start to caramalise giving you a very uninteresting looking brown jam.