My jam making was haphazard until my husband bought a special thermometer from a trendy kitchen shop. Before that it was the 'congealed drip off the spoon' method, or the 'cold saucer treatment'. I grew tired of conducting these empirical experiments and the damson preserve turned out as a sweet gloopy sauce for flavouring vanilla ice cream or natural yoghurt.
Last night, we reached the vital point of 220 degrees F (105 degrees C) and this morning the jam had set. The precision of this amazes me. As you ascend the scale there is one temperature for jam and another for nougat; one for soft toffee, one for hard toffee and the high one for humbugs (according to my trusty Farmhouse Kitchen cookbook). Right temperature, right result. All it requires is the proper equipment and patience.
I don't always have much patience in the trials of life. But I take comfort from this. There is a point at which it all sets. Shorter or longer than fifteen minutes in this case.
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