Claire Elizabeth: 2012

Strawberry & White Chocolate Jam

16:13

The other week, whilst sitting around the dinner table talking with family and friends, the subject of jam was brought up and we began discussing our favourite flavours. I like a good raspberry conserve, seeds and all, but I think my personal favourite has to be 'quatre fruits'- four fruits that is. My parents buy this delicious jam on their trips to France and I always look forward to a jar of the stuff when they return. However, I did recently discover that Bonne Maman make a similar version containing strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and cherries which is also rather scrummy, and available in the UK-wahey!

Anyway, one of my friends told me about a jam that his mum makes which contains chocolate. Chocolate? In jam? I wasn't sure that it could actually work. Now don't get me wrong, I love a bit (or a lot) of Nutella but wouldn't adding chunks of chocolate to fruit jam be a bit strange? Well, in this case, it definitely isn't! Basically, you make a raspberry jam, then stir in small pieces of white chocolate at the last minute so that some of it partially melts into the hot jam, whilst some of it remains as chunks which gives one a nice surprise when spreading some of the stuff on hot, buttery toast-nice! I just had to have a go at making a batch of my own.

For mine, I used fresh strawberries and also added the seeds from a vanilla pod as I love the combination of vanilla with white chocolate. I took a standard bar of white chocolate, and roughly chopped it into chunks/flakes of varying size. I made my strawberry jam as normal, transferred it to jars, then whilst it was still hot in the jars I quickly stirred through the chocolate. I was a bit worried that it would all melt instantly, considering the low melting point of chocolate, but surprisingly it didn't and I was left with four wonderful jars of ruby red jam speckled with creamy white chunks and tiny black dots of vanilla.

Rather nice stirred through homemade ice cream, or you could just get a spoon...

As for the taste? Well, all I can say is that I was blown away. This is the best jam I have ever tasted and I admit to eating it straight from the jar... I will most certainly be making it again once my batch runs out!

Victoria Plums

16:22

Hello all! I know, I know..it has been far too long since I last shared some baked goodies with you all, but I'm here now and I hope you like what I have to offer :)

This week I'm going to show you some sweet treats I made using a seasonal fruit for September- the Victoria plum. The Victoria plum is an English variety, with a sweet yellow flesh and light red-orange skin. As you may have already guessed, the name originates from Queen Victoria and the fruit was apparently introduced in the 1840's. The Victoria plum tree is very widely grown in many British gardens, including mine, as my Dad kindly received one as a gift last year! Unfortunately we lost all the plums last season due to some cheeky little squirrels but this year we got a full crop thanks to my Dad's clever netting around the tree. Although the plums were lovely and ripe, I found they were a little tart for my taste buds and I decided that they would be best used for cooking (or baking in my case!)

One of my favourite plum recipes is Delia's Oat and Cinnamon Slice-a delicious combination of oats, butter, brown sugar, fruit and cinnamon. It's so simple to make as the base of the slice is also used for the crumble topping and so you can whip up this afternoon tea treat in very little time. You can of course use a variety of different fruits for the filling- I once tried apples and raisins, which is a classic combination, but why not experiment and use some of your favourite seasonal fruits.

After making my plum slice, I had a go at a recipe for plum and almond cupcakes. However, instead of baking mine in a cupcake tin, I made mini loaf cakes instead as I decided that I don't use my individual loaf tins often enough! The recipes calls for ground almonds and cinnamon but I substituted the cinnamon for almond extract instead, as I love the marzipan-like flavour it gives. I sliced the plums and arranged them on the top of the cake mixture, then sprinkled them with flaked almonds and brown sugar to give a crunchy topping.

I thought my little bakes would make lovely gifts, so I packaged a few of them in cellophane bags tied up with pretty ribbon-simple but effective!

After my little baking session, I still found that I had a few leftover plums so I thought what better way to use them up than to make some jam! Cooking the fruit with the sugar turned the mixture into a wonderful orange-pink colour and really intensified the flavour of the plums.