Blueberry, Lemon and Chili Jam – My first jam!

I am not really a jam person. I think I was, at some point when I was a child. I liked eating my mother’s delicious strawberry jam. But that was it. I guess the way I like eating jam the most in the recent years is with sausage. Yes, you read it correct, I like dipping sausage into jam, so sue me!

But still, there is homey feeling about making your very own jam. It is first of all easy, the ingredients are usually quite general ones, and you can control the amount of sugar and the quality of ingredients yourself. However, especially if you are not the best jam consumer eating it all day every day, I recommend that you make it in smaller amounts – because they do not last as long as those that are bought from stores – am I right?

I wanted to make jam just for the whole experience of it. My roommate Anja was making at that time pumpkin jam – which was really delicious by the way, sort of like a pumpkin sauce, which made it so much easier compared to jam eating. And so Anja inspired me and I realised that it was time to try making my own. This jam recipe was the one I found in a blog called Lea & Jay. It immediately took my attention because I could realize that it had both sweet and spicy taste.

I made a really small amount of the jam since it was just a trial for me, and I will give you the amount of ingredients for my version. I ended up with one 300 ml jar and one 100 ml jar. I think it was quite a good amount of homemade jam. But if you want, you can increase the amount of ingredients as much as you like, preserving the ratios to each other. Also, you can increase the amount of peppers – I just did not want to make it too spicy.

For sugar, I used Mascobado cane sugar (Mascobado Täysruoka). I found it in Ruohonjuuri and it was 9.85 euros. You can use white sugar or any other kind of sugar you like. Mascobado sugar is rich in molasses flavour so it added a bit of molasses taste to the jam as well.

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Ingredients:

300 gr. blueberries (I used frozen)
1 1/2 cups / 300 gr. Mascobado cane sugar
1/2 lemon
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 tbsp / 7.5 ml green jalapeño peppers (minced)
1/4 tsp / 1.25 ml red pepper (minced)
1/4 tsp / 1.25 ml sea salt

To add to the finalised jam (optional):
100 gr. fresh or frozen blueberries (I used fresh “pensasmustikka”)

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1. Prepare your jars. I washed mine, then boiled them in water for about 20 minutes, then let them cool.

2. Put blueberries and sugar in a pan. Mix the two ingredients, until the berries are covered with sugar. Put aside to macerate while you are dealing with other ingredients.

3. Peel the half lemon (try not to take much of the white parts) and cut the zest into thin strips.

4. Juice the peeled half lemon. Strain out to have a clear juice.

5. Put the zest and juice inside the blueberry/sugar mix and stir well.

6. In another pan, toast the cinnamon stick in high temperature for about 1-2 minutes, until it gets a bit brown. Take it out of the pan when it is done.

7. Mince the jalapeño and red peppers.

8. Mash the blueberry mixture inside the pan with a potato masher or with just a fork, however suits you best, until it gets rather smooth. I actually started with a potato masher and then continued with a blender!

9. To the mashed blueberry mixture, add cinnamon stick, minced peppers and salt and stir it briefly using a fork. Put the pan on medium high heat and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until it boils and gets rather soupy. After that, reduce the heat to low and continue to cook stirring every now and then.

10. Continue cooking until jam is thickened. The setting temperature for the jam is 105C if you have a thermometer. If you don’t have a thermometer, in order to test if the jam is set or not, simply take a little of jam with a spoon and put it on a plate. If it does not run down when you tilt the plate, then it is set.

11. If you have extra 100 gr. blueberries, add those in the jam to have some chunks of blueberries inside the jam. After that put your ready jam in the jars. Allow it to cool to room temperature before you put it inside the fridge. I let mine cool down for about 3 hours before I put it in the fridge.