Happy Monday everyone, I hope you all had a lovely weekend. We had the most wonderful weekend celebrating the end of Ben’s MBA with all our friends and family - it was the perfect way to end a very busy year, thank you so so much to everyone for your well wishes and of course those who celebrated with us, it really was a fantastic weekend!
You may have noticed lately that I’ve become a little obsessed with strawberries - in my mind they’re the king of summer berries, they’re just so delicious and of course can be made into everything from tarts, puddings and various ice cream treats. I’ve been wanting to whip up a batch of strawberry jam for a while now so last week on a rainy summers afternoon I made the most perfect batch of strawberry and vanilla jam. If you’ve never made jam before wonderfully easy, you can experiment with different flavours of fruit low in pectin that you like and of course an afternoon of jam making will leave your home smelling absolutely stunning, plus a few delicious jars of homemade strawberry jam would make such a lovely Christmas gift this year. x
Click read more for the recipe.

Strawberry and Vanilla Jam

300g strawberries - hulled, rinsed and finely chopped
300g Chelsea Jam Setting Sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
A knob of butter, 10g
To sterilise your jars, preheat oven to 150°C and place the jar you will store your curd in the oven for 20min, turn the oven off and allow the jar to cool before handling.
Place sugar, strawberries and vanilla into a large pot. Very gently heat and stir the mixture over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved, do not allow to boil. Add the butter to the jam and increase the heat and bring to the boil - a boil the cannot be stirred down. Boil for four minutes only before removing from heat and bottling into cute sterilised mason jars.

Tips and tricks

Any fruits that are low in pectin are perfect for jam - such as strawberries, raspberries, apricots, blueberries, blackberries, pears, plums, peaches, rhubarb and sweet navel oranges.
Fresh or frozen fruit can be used - just allow frozen fruit to thaw before using.
You can make as much or as little jam as you like - as long as you keep the ratio of fruit and jam setting sugar 1:1. So 1kg of fruit to 1kg of sugar.