Home made strawberry jam

So what to do when you end up with a lot of strawberries in hand?

Unfortunately, the shelf life of strawberries is too short. So I HAD to find a way to use them. I need to find a way to preserve them and my thoughts led me to the idea of strawberry preserve or a jam.

The recipes on the internet calls for pectin sugar which gives the consistency of jam. I had none at hand. So I just went ahead with the castor sugar I had. 'Oh well, this is going to be an experiment anyways; so go ahead without any fear' I reassured myself.

Ingredients:

1. Strawberries (crushed) - 3 cups

2. Sugar - 2 cups

3. Lemon juice - 1/4 cup

Method:

Wash the strawberries and hull them.

Crush the strawberries with your hand or gently blend them so that you have pulp with pieces of strawberry.

Heat a deep pan and add the crushed strawberries, sugar and lemon juice. Once the mixture starts boiling, reduce the flame to low and keep cooking the strawberries till the mixture reduces to half. This will take some time (about one hour or more). Do not forget to stir in between.

The mixture will thicken as it reduces. Allow it to cool completely before transferring to glass jars. Keep this preserve in the freezer.

While the strawberries were cooking on the stove, I was not very sure how it was going to thicken. But once cooled, it did have a thick consistency (not like jam but still thick). And it tastes good. 

World, here is strawberry jam without any preservatives or additives.

Notes:

You can add less amount of sugar while preparing the jam since you can add more while using it for recipes.

You can mix this with some cream and use it as a filling for cakes.

You can mix this with some warm milk and get instant milkshake.

The options are endless.

Yet another successful experiment.