Thursday, May 3, 2012

Deep breaths

We are taking a breather around here today. Reading books in bed all morning, a long lazy afternoon walk, swatching,

The difference a millimetre makes

and jamming.

Ingredients

A couple of my lovely friends are getting married in June, and one of them informed me that jam or jelly or marmalade would be an excellent wedding gift. Not content to do one thing where eight things would do, I got started on a whole bunch of tiny batches of jam and jelly and marmalade with interesting floral flavours. The goal is to fill out the whole colour spectrum, although I know that blues will present a probably-insurmountable challenge. (Damn blueberries for turning purple!)

Jam spectrum: reds and oranges

This is the story so far, from left to right: cranberry, hibiscus, and ginger jam; strawberry and apple jam; tangerine and rose petal marmalade; apple and jasmine jelly. Next up are lemon and chamomile jelly, lime and mint jam (my partner's genius idea), then The Blue Challenge and jam of whatever purple fruit looks best when I go shopping.

Chopped tangerine

Orange is obviously my favourite. This tangerine felt very heavy for its size, and the flesh was beautiful and juicy and tender. One of them ended up being 3/4 cup of chopped fruit, which turned into just enough marmalade to fill a 250mL jar with a spoonful left over to taste.

2 comments:

Jane said...

Jam spectrum! That's a brilliant idea, and the colours you've made so far look wonderful.

BeckyinVT said...

I think you should do a straight up floral jelly for blue. I've heard that borage flowers are edible, maybe there are others?