In article ,
"Mary Fisher" writes:
|
| Um. It's not a matter of 'setting the sugar'! It's said that it extracts the
| pectin from the fruit but a lot of fruit has so little pectin that ... well
| never mind.

You need SOME acid to set pectin, but that really only matters for
weird things like pumpkin jam.

| I make ALL our jams and marmalades and have done so decades. I've never,
| ever, used citric acid in powder or fruit form, nor bottled or pectin
| extracted by me from apples. It's not necessary. Jam doesn't HAVE to be like
| a jelly, it just needs to hold itself together well enough to be able to use
| a knife to extract it from the jar rather than the spoon. My test used to be
| to invert the jar of cold jam for a few seconds, if it didn't fall or ooze
| out it was fine.

Our strawberry jam failed to set this year because the wet weather
meant that the strawberries contained too much water. No, we didn't
add any, and that is one jam you can't boil down.

| OK, fair's fair, I buy it now simply because I can add so much whisky
| innit.
|
| You could make your own marmalade with whisky but I'd prefer to use
| something better than paint stripper. But there again I use 30yo Armagnac
| when I flambé a steak ...

I object! A decent single malt is at least the equal of an Armagnac.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.