After acquiring an excessive amount of rhubarb I was under a bit of a time crunch to use it all before it started getting a bit floppy and sad, my first port of call was, of course, to make a big batch of rhubarb jam, once jammified, the shelf life is much better, giving me a bit more time to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with it all. I believe the wonderful Nicola Lamb has a rhubarb newsletter if you really want to dive into sugar percentages and different ways to prepare rhubarb but I stuck with my standard jam ratio of 40-50% sugar. Because I wanted this jam to be nice and tart I stuck with 40% and added a touch of citric acid (click here to learn more about citric acid), you can always use lemon juice instead. The addition of pectin here is optional but I like to use it for a firmer set, I find the small sachets of pectin to be more reliable than the liquid form but that’s a whole other topic for another day. For now let’s get on with the jam!
Ingredients
1kg rhubarb
400g caster sugar
A few empty vanilla pods or 1tsp vanilla paste
3g or 1/2tsp citric acid
8g pectin mixed with 10g sugar
Method
Chop the rhubarb into approximately 1cm pieces, throw away the leaves (they’re poisonous) but keep the manky end bits, we’ll deal with these later!
Combine the rhubarb with the sugar and some vanilla (I use old, empty pods for this rather than cracking into a fresh one!). Leave this mixture for at least 3 hours to macerate.
Once all of the sugar has dissolved put onto a medium/high heat and bring to the boil.
When the jam is boiling, shower in the pectin/sugar mixture whilst whisking, this will help stop any lumps of pectin forming.
Reduce the heat to low and cook for at least an hour, stirring intermittently.
When all of the rhubarb has broken down and the jam has thickened, remove from the heat, fish out any bits of vanilla and decant into sterilised jars.
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I used this jam in my rhubarb, pistachio and cardamom tarts, but also on my porridge, on some rice pudding, and in this a vertical roll cake - recipe here, I just switched up the flavours by changing the jam to rhubarb, the puree to raspberry and omitting the earl grey.
Hi Sophie,
How long will the jam keep for?