Celtic Pinay: Apricot Jam

One morning, one of the girls from office handed me a big bag of apricots.

"From my tree!" she said, "do you have an apricot tree?"

"Nope!", said I, "you want me to have everything in the bag?"

"Yeah sure you can have it", she said, and walked away with a smile.

"Ok, no problem, I'll make apricot jam!" I yelled out behind her. She turned around and nodded approvingly.

And so it shall be done, apricot jam, here we come.

B's apricots

the apricots were rinsed and pitted, and chopped into smaller pieces

and placed over medium heat with a cup of water.

the usual proportions is 1kg of fruit to 1kg of sugar! but this was a bit too much for me

so for the 1kg of fruit i had added around 750g of sugar.

still sounds like a lot, but it IS jam after all... and without that much sugar the desired 'jammy' consistency may not be achieved.

so when the fruit had softened and started to break down, in goes the sugar, and mix constantly to avoid burning. keep an eye out until the fruit has reduced to a pulp

i read about a 'consistency' test where you place a teaspoon of the mixture on to a chilled plate and place the plate inside the freezer; take it out after a couple of minutes, then if you push the jam with a finger and it wrinkles as above, then it is ready. if it just runs over, then it needs more time to cook.

I finished it off by mixing in juice from 1 lemon and about 3 tablespoons of cherry brandy.