Ingredients:
400g of Apricots
400g of Sugar
50g of Ground Almonds
Equipment:
Saucepan
Sieve
Wooden Spoon
Jam Jars
Apricot Jam
Recipe from Robert Abbot, The Housekeeper's Valuable Present (1790).
A popular domestic manual published at the end of the eighteenth century to provide instructions to the average middle class domestic wife or housekeeper about how to run a home.
Jam and preservatives were an incredibly popular confectionary during this period- preserves had a whole dedicated chapter in Robert Abbot's book. It is simply the method of boiling soft fruit with sugar, left to cool and then stored. From this point onwards, people could consume sweetened fruit throughout the year.
Prep Time: 10 minutes Serves: 4 Ability: Easy
Cook Time: 45 minutes
Method
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De-seed your apricots and add them to your saucepan to boil to a pulp. Once the apricots have become a pulp, strain through a sieve until smooth.
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Add pulp, sugar and almonds to the preserving pan/ saucepan and boil for at least 1 hour. It's important to have the heat low so the sugar dissolves rather than melts and sticks to the pan.
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bring the fruit mixture to a rapid, rolling boil (when the bubbles cannot be calmed down by stirring with a spoon). Cook for 3-5 minutes until the jam reaches setting point. As your jam approaches setting point, it will thicken and start to boil more slowly, with thicker, heavier bubbles.
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Pout liquid into jars and leave to set in fridge overnight.