25a Warren Street was a family home for decades, owned by an Italian couple who raised their kids upstairs and ran a business on the ground floor. They lived there all their lives and their children are now our landlords. After the parents passed away, the ground-floor café was rented out for a while, then stood empty for about a year before we took the lease. When the two of us first walked into the kitchen, it had a bit of a strange feel to it. Not unwelcoming; more the slight eeriness of a room rocked into life after being unused for a while. It seemed spacious and huge, and slightly empty. As we set about readying the kitchen for work, conditioning the equipment and getting comfortable in the space, we started hearing a strange sound, like someone strumming a harp. At first each of us thought we were imagining it, but when we started hearing it together, we realized that it wasn’t a figment of our imagination. People came in to visit and they heard it as well, but we had enough on our plate with opening the restaurant, so we just called it a friendly ghost and went about our business, occasionally to the sound of heavenly harps.
We later discovered it was the old-fashioned freezer making that noise. The cooling unit consisted of very fine strings, and when the door was opened or closed, they would tremble and produce the sound we had come to like so much.
As the restaurant got busier and busier, our once huge, empty kitchen became smaller, fuller and much hotter. We were battling to find bench space for preparation and fighting over access to the stovetops, and all the delicate doughs we needed to shape every day were struggling with the heat, so when our friend Bridget offered to do a few night shifts a week, it was the perfect solution for all of us. The delicate doughs would not melt in the heat, the jams would have space on the stoves and the spices would be ready, roasted and ground, for us to use in the morning. Best of all, Bridget would get to spend the day with Elizabeth and Freya (her two gorgeous girls) and we would get to see Bridget in the mornings, which for us is almost like having a social life.
When the ghostly freezer eventually died on us, we replaced it with a newer model. Sadly the new one doesn’t sing, and if there is a sound from the basement when the restaurant is closed, it is only Bridget with her pots and pans. She does claim to have seen the specter of a friendly little girl from time to time, but we hope it is just the time spent with her daughters and the long hours at work that are making her see things.
I love making jams. I got bitten by the bug as a child, when my family went to visit some friends from Canada who were staying at their grandma’s house. She was a great cook and served the most lovely strawberry jam for breakfast. I was always a greedy kid and sweet things would make my day, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat her jam, as I was used to smooth, jelly-like spreads. As always, in the end my sweet tooth got the better of me, and as soon as I had eaten the first strawberry, I was hooked. The jar on the table emptied all too quickly. Later that day, when I went to use the bathroom, I discovered a small door. Being nosy, I opened it, to discover a pantry with rows of glistening jars, all sealed, labeled and ready to eat. I was too young to read but could recognize strawberries (my favorite) and attacked a jar with my fingers, picking the whole fruits out of the rich syrup. I was amazed by the discovery that this was something you could make at home and have strawberries all year round.
When I think of this story, I am appalled. And I have never told anyone until now. What must this poor grandma have thought when she finally came to use that jar and saw half of it had gone, and the remainder no doubt spoiled (I had used my grubby little fingers to fish the strawberries out).
I was slightly too young to start boiling sugar straight away, but I kept the thought of that texture in my mind, and never did go back to favoring smooth jelly spreads. When I started making jams, I discovered my own ways to produce that wonderful soft-set with huge pieces of fruit suspended in it, vibrant with color and freshness. Now our shelves at Honey & Co are laden with jars of glistening jam, neatly labeled and ready to eat—my tribute and my apology to that grandma’s pantry.
• Try to use nice fruit. I am not saying it needs to look perfect, but it does need to taste good and be in season (no amount of sugar will make up for tasteless fruit). It should be ripe but not overripe, as that can cause the jam to ferment and taste a little wine-y.
• Wash the fruit briefly, but don’t leave it in water for long as this can saturate the fruit and dilute the flavor. If you can get hold of organic produce, then by all means use that, but check carefully for worms, caterpillars and insects.
• Prepare your fruit to the size you want for the finished jam. I like chunky jams, so I always try to buy small fruit that can be cooked whole or halved. You can cut it smaller if you wish, but try to keep all the pieces the same size so that they cook at the same speed.
• I use granulated sugar and never add artificial pectin. You can add a halved apple (core and all) to the mix if you like a firmer set; just remove it before bottling. The set really depends on which fruit you are cooking; some naturally contain high amounts of pectin (apples, quince, blackcurrants) and don’t need any more; others, like strawberries and peaches, are very low in pectin, so I add lemon juice or whole citrus fruits to assist the setting.
• I cook jam in smallish batches (about 1.5–2kg fruit to make 4–7 jars). It seems a bit pointless to make less and a bit laborious to make more, but if you want to reduce or increase the quantities, you must take into account that cooking times will change too. And be aware that if you use double the amount of fruit and sugar, you should only increase the spices by 50%, or their flavor will be too strong.
• Put all the ingredients in a large cooking pan and mix well to moisten the fruit. It is best to use a jam pan or other heavy-bottomed pan. It should only be up to three-quarters full and no higher, as jams tend to boil over and therefore need space.
• Before you start cooking the jam, set a couple of small saucers or dishes in the fridge or freezer to cool—I find they serve best for testing the consistency.
• Bring to the boil on a high heat, stirring occasionally to avoid burning. A high heat is the secret to keeping the color and flavor vibrant. If you cook jam slowly at a low heat, you tend to caramelize it and the end result is a very dark treacly jam which tastes more of sugar than of fruit.
• Skim as much as you can and as often as you care to. Use a slotted spoon to lift off the foam or dip a ladle in the top of the liquid so that the foam trickles into it. The more you skim, the clearer the resulting jam will be.
• Once the bubbles change texture—this will be very obvious, as they become larger and somewhat volcanic—it is time to test the jam for the first time. Take one of your cold saucers out and place a spoonful of hot jam in the center, then count to 10. Start by looking at it. If there is runny liquid dripping away to the sides, looking thinner than the rest, continue cooking. If it stays in one blob, run your finger through the middle of it. If the jam closes over the line you traced, continue cooking; if it leaves a distinct track, it is time to bottle up.
• Pour the hot jam into sterilized jars and seal straight away. You can top each one with a circle of waxed parchment, but I don’t bother. I just make sure to store them upright from the moment of bottling to the moment of consumption.
• There are a couple of ways I use to sterilize jars. The easiest is to wash the jars and lids well in hot soapy water, then rinse and drain. When your jam is ready, boil some water and fill the jars to the rim. Empty one at a time to fill with the hot jam and seal immediately. Alternatively, you can wash the jars in hot soapy water, then place them upright in the oven at 275°F/250°F convection for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven one by one when required to fill them while still hot. However you sterilize the jars, once they are sealed, leave to cool entirely before opening.
• I always use a ladle to transfer the hot jam carefully into a heat-resistant jug, then guide the jam into the jar with a spoon. If you are more comfortable with a jam funnel, use that.
• Jam sealed this way should keep well for over 6 months at room temperature, but once opened you should refrigerate and use up within a month. I find that the jam keeps longer if you use clean spoons to remove it from the jar, although in my experience it always disappears long before its use-by date.