My Apricot Jam Tree

I am an apricot jam freak – my favourite jam of all.
I have an apricot tree espaliered against the wall in the tunnel in our garden.
It’s not a regular tunnel, hence the wall, it’s where the original glasshouse once was.
The tree was three years old this past spring and this July sees our third harvest of apricots.
We were meant to skip the first harvest but I couldn’t bring myself to strip the fruits off which evidently I should have done as last year we only got a handful of apricots – which we ate – they were delicious but not enough to make jam. This year the tree seemed to catch up and we got a good few kilos which I harvested yesterday.

Waking up to hear more rain splatting off the roof this morning didn’t cause as much despair as other days as I knew I had the apricots waiting in the kitchen.
I hopped up and quickly began the jam mission so that it could cook whilst I had breakfast.
I washed the apricots, split the fruit and removed the stones which were given a little bash and then put into a little muslin bag.

The fruit was roughly chopped and put into a saucepan with the sugar, the juice of a lemon and the muslin bag which dangled by a string from the saucepan handle.

I gently heated the pot until the fruit and sugar began to melt together and then slowly raised the heat until everything was bubbling away. It doesn’t take long to reach setting pot, two slices of toast and a smoothie later it was ready to pot up.

Jam making’s a great rainy day job. A steamy kitchen full of the smell of sweet cooking fruits which culminate with jars of golden jam. Guaranteed to lift the rainy day blues!