Every year we make apricot jam, and every year we make not enough to even last us through summer. Not this year! We bought us a tray of 5 kilograms of fresh apricots from France to make a huge batch of lovely apricot jam. We needed every preserve pot we had to store all the jam. It was a good thing we have a big Aga preserve jam pan to make many litres of jam at a time. Still we had to split this huge amount of sugar, lemons and apricots into two batches. We love tart, not too sweet apricot jam, so we add lots of fresh Amalfi lemon juice and not too much sugar. Most recipes call for 1 kilogram of sugar on 1 kilogram of fruit, however we think this is too much sugar and too sweet. Hopefully this batch will last through fall…

Wash the apricots, remove the stones and cut them in quarters. Put them in a big cooking or jam pan and add the sugar and lemon juice. Cover the pan and let stand for at least an hour , preferably in a cool place. Then put the pan on a low heat and make sure you dissolve all the sugar before bringing the apricots to a boil. Continue cooking on high heat until you have the right jam consistency (approx 20 minutes, but it’s more something you have to learn from experience and for which you develop an eye over time) making sure the mixture doesn’t burn at the bottom of the pan by stirring ones in a while. You can also use a candy thermometer. Jam has to reach 105 degrees Celsius (221 F) to achieve jam consistency. You can also check the consistency by putting a few drops of jam on a cold plate. Now skim the surface carefully, removing froth. Add the hint of vanilla (optional of course). Put the hot jam in clean, sterilised jars and seal.