Strawberry-Rose Jam Recipe

(Editor note: As an experiment, I want to see what happens when you publish one of these without a 500 word essay on ‘what I did last Sunday’. Are you entertained!?)

Recipe by Z Richter Welch

You will need:

For the rosewater –

• Two handfuls’ worth of petals
• 2 tablespoons of water

For the jam –

• A combination of strawberries and rose petals adding up to 1 kg
• One 25 g packet of Dr Oetker 2:1 Gelfix
• 500 g of real sugar, or erythritol – up to you!
• (Optional) The juice of at least 1 lemon

For the containers –

• Several mason jars
• 2 to 3 cups of distilled or purified water – and a pot to boil it in
• A wide funnel
• A roasting tin or baking sheet
• Tongs and oven gloves

Make Your Rosewater

Triim away and discard the white or light or yellowish bits at the base of each petal. If you will be busy for a while between picking and prepping the petals, I suggest you leave the flowers in cold water until you’re ready to use the petals. You don’t want wilting.

Take your extra trimmed petals and place them in a pot, take some distilled or purified water (I just used cooled down boiled water), and only just cover the rose petals in that water.

Simmer on low heat for 20 to 30 minutes or so, being careful never to let it boil. The rose petals will lose their color in the process and the water may look a little yellow but if it’s full on green, you’ve boiled them and that’s not good – it’ll taste more green and less rosy.

Once 20 minutes or so have passed remove from heat, strain and discard the wilted petals. You can store the rose water in a glass jar and refrigerate. It’ll keep for a few days to two weeks.

Sterilize Your Mason Jars

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Prepare a large pot of boiling water. Wash your jars and their lids in hot, soapy water, rinse well, and then place the jars and lids into the pot of boiling water. Boil for 10 minutes.

IMPORTANT: If you have lids with removable rubber seals only boil them on their own for 2 to 3 minutes and do not oven dry them

Next place these jars and their lids face down in the roasting tin and place in the preheated oven to dry for 15 minutes – use gloves and tongs, as the jars will be super-duper hot; just avoid touching the insides of the jars at all costs.

Create Your Jam

Combine your strawberries, petals, sugar or erythritol, and Gelfix in a pot and put on the hob on medium high heat. Add in your lemon juice and rosewater.

Using a wooden spoon, stir this mixture occasionally, mashing it up, until it comes to a boil, at which time you then let it boil for a minimum of 3 minutes as you stir continually.

Put it all Together

When your mason jars are ready, remove them from the oven, turn them right side up, place your funnel on one of the hot jars and start pouring the hot jam mixture in.

Fill as many jars as you need to but don’t over fill them, then cover with lids immediately, sealing them well (use oven gloves!) and turn them upside down. Leave them upside down for 5 minutes. Then right side up, and let cool.

Many recipes note that you are to let them set for 24 to 48 hours, but I think using Dr Oetker makes that step optional. Mine totally set within an hour or two.