Fig Jam

Any regular reader will know that on a typical Saturday morning, after several cups of coffee, I will wander down to my local market to buy fruit, cheese and vegetables and whatever is on offer that I can preserve or cook in bulk. I often manage to buy more that I can comfortably carry and frequently forget that my bags will feel heavier on the way home, the sweet chilli pepper incident is a good example.

However this Saturday I saw an entire tray of beautiful, perfect fresh figs for the tiny sum of £3.50! How could I leave them? There were over 40 in the tray, forgetting the fact that I am currently in phase 1 of the South Beach diet and am not allowed any fruit for the first two weeks, I bought a tray.

The only solution was to make fig jam, to be enjoyed at a later date when fresh figs are not available.

I firmly believe that jams, preserves, pickles and chutneys should be simple and the flavour of the fruit or vegetable should shine through – fresh figs taste simply divine, so why do some of the recipes for fig jam have additions such and vanilla or cinnamon? So here is a simple fig jam, and my submission for this month’s Sugar High Friday – The Beautiful Fig, hosted this month by Ivonne at Cream Puffs in Venice, its probably not the most inventive submission, but hopefully the longest lasting!

Fig Jam

Ingredients

Fresh figs – cut into 1/4″ pieces
Equal weight of sugar to figs
Juice of half a lemon per pound of figs – needed for pectin to help the jam set
1/8 to 1/4 pint of water per pound of figs depending how ripe figs are

Place all the ingredients in a stockpot or preserving pan, and gently simmer for 40 mins to an hour, stirring from time to time until the jam reaches setting point (put a blob on a chilled plate and pop into the fridge for a few minutes, a skin will form that will wrinkle when you prod it). Pour into warmed sterilised jars and seal. It will improve on keeping – if you can wait that long.

4lb of figs made 7 medium pots of jam.

So easy and so delicious, the fig jam is lovely on bread, in tarts, in steamed pudding it even goes well with blue cheese.