Saturday, February 25, 2012

Fig Jam



Every year, the fruit man at work shares his home-grown figs with the lucky person who collects the fruit from him each week.  As Karen has sadly moved on, Sandra, our receptionist, is now the lucky recipient of the figs.

I am lucky in that Sandra passed the figs on to me.  I decided that a great way to use the figs would be to make fig jam to preserve them for weeks to come.

The recipe that I used for fig jam comes from p227 of The Country Show Cookbook, and comes from Margaret Bradley from the Trundle Show.  The recipe is as follows:

1kg figs
750g white sugar


(I used 700g figs and 500g sugar)

Cut the thick, milky part of the fig stems off.  Place the whole figs (skin and all) in a large saucepan and cover them with water.  Simmer the figs until they are tender.

Drain the cooked figs, then mash them with a potato masher.  Pour the sugar on top of the figs, then boil the mixture until it reaches setting point.  (To tell this - put a saucer in the freezer; when you think the jam is ready, drop a small amount of teaspoon onto the frozen plate, put in the fridge for a couple of minutes, then run your finger through the jam on the plate.  If it doesn't run back in to fill in the track you made with your finger, it has reached setting point.)

Pour the jam into sterilised jars and seal.

Spread your jam on bread or cakes:



or just eat it out of the jar!

12 comments:

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

I dream of having a fig tree in my backyard. Actually I don't have a backyard so I dream of that too :P

yummychunklet said...

This looks worth a try. My taste for figs is growing!

Daisy@Nevertoosweet said...

Wow I never thought of making jam out of figs, nor did I know it was so simple :) thanks for sharing!

Jill said...

Yum! And it sounds like it's easy to make. I've seen fig jam at the grocery store and it's pretty expensive.

Johanna GGG said...

Lovely - especially home made home grown! The FIGJAM acroym always makes me laugh - and I can highly recommend fig jam in turkish bread pudding (if is on my blog) if you are wondering what to do with it

wendy (pinkstripes) said...

I love fresh figs. Your lucky to have a fresh source like that. And fig jam is so good. Yum.

Elaine said...

Your jam looks delicious. I wish I had someone to pass figs on to me! How lucky you are.

Christy said...

Figs are so heavely. Lucky you to be the recipient of fresh figs!

Jaime said...

who knew it was so easy to make fig jam?? nice!

Kayte said...

Oh, I love fig jam! I need to learn how to make this. Such a pretty jar and the jam looks wonderful.

Kathy said...

Oh, I'm so jealous...I love figs and always make fig jam. However, this year I didn't get to make mine! Your jam looks wonderful! Enjoy it!

Hazel - Chicken in a Cherry Sauce said...

Absolutely love this stuff - especially with cheese!