Pear jam

• Prep time: 30 minutes
• Cook time: 1 hours
• Yield: 2 jars

Ingredients

• 900g pear flesh (after peeling and coring)
• 300g caster sugar (1/3 volume of fruit)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3 cardamom pods

Steps

• Peel & core the pears
• Chop into small pieces that are perfect for jam. They’ll be soft and break down a bit once cooked.
• Add the pear, sugar and lemon juice, toss, and cover the bowl.
• Leave for 12-24 hours in the fridge.
• Transfer to a very large pan. The mixture froths a verylot once it gets hot
• Heat on medium-high until it reaches 105℃. This takes a while as a lot of moisture will boil off before the temperature rises above 100℃. This is when the foaming happens, and when that stops you need to watch the temperature closely.
• Meanwhile, sterilise some jam jars.
• When the mixture reaches 105℃, immediately remove from the heat and transfer to the jars.
• Leave to cool, and refrigerate/freeze.

It’s all about the ratios: add 1/3 the weight of fruit as sugar.