Strawberry jam

[Mildred]

Does anyone have a recipe for strawberry jam please

 

[mikeyB]

Hi Mildred, welcome to the forum.

There are several recipes online for no added sugar strawberry jam, but if you don’t want to make your own, Tesco and Holland&Barratt sell jars of no added sugar strawberry jam. It’s really a fruit compote, and doesn’t keep well - a week max. They are expensive -£2.50 -£3 a jar.

It’s impossible to make carb free strawberry jam because strawberries contain fructose.

 

[Kaylz]

@Sally W may be able to help, wouldn't be a proper "jam" of course but hey ho xx

 

[silentsquirrel]

Have a careful look at the labels of "no sugar" jams - thay are sometimes made with concentrated grape juice, so still high carb!

I make my own jam, but reduce the sugar in a normal recipe to 70%, which is still enough to preserve the jam, and I prefer the taste. Still quite high carb, so mostly for others in the family, but a fantastic hypo treatment for those on insulin.

 

[zuludog]

For a few years I was a laboratory technician in a jam factory

Strictly speaking, you cannot have low sugar jam as by law anything called jam must have a minimum sugar content in order to preserve it. That's why you can leave an opened jar of jam in a cupboard for weeks & months

IIRC the level was 61,5% TDS = Total Dissolved Solids, though it was years ago and I could be mistaken over the exact figure, but it was somewhere around that

The way to achieve that is to mix fruit, sugar, and pectin then boil it, which evaporates off some of the water, and breaks everything down to create the sticky/glutinous/jelly- like structure we call jam

Commercial and home made jams use the same sort of method.
Top quality jam is mostly fruit & sugar, with cheaper jams having more pectin

You can get so called low sugar jam. These are various spreads and compotes containing less sugar but more pectin and artificial sweeteners to obtain the required structure & consistency and sweetness

Search Google and YouTube for 'low sugar jam'
There are several types available to buy, and recipes

As these contain less sugar they must be kept in a fridge, and have a shorter shelf life

Here's a suggestion - make your own or buy best quality jam or homemade jam from summer fetes and so on
They will usually have a higher fruit content resulting in a stronger flavour, so you will need less of it

I remember years ago, before I had D seeing a recipe for apricot spread made by simmering together soaked chopped dried apricots, spices, and a very small amount of brown sugar to make a 'jam' that had the minimum of sugar
It did mention that it had to be kept in the fridge

 

[Toucan]

I found this recipe, but the jam will only keep for 3 to 4 days.

300g of fruit ( e,g raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, peaches)
2 tablespoons chia seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla extract ( or more to add extra sweetness)

Blend in a food processor for a couple of minutes until it thickens up, and store in airtight jar in the fridge.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

I prefer home made jams, because the fruit content is generally higher and they taste better.

Depending on where you are using the jam, I would suggest that the amount of carb involved per portion is likely to be fairly modest.

My Mum’s rule of thumb was approx the same weight of fruit as sugar, and I tend to go a little less sugar than that. Strawberries tend to be pretty BG-friendly (you can absorb some fructose without insulin I think), so my guess would be that my homemade jams are less than 50% sucrose

A teaspoon’s worth for a single slice of seedy toast would be around 5g, so only 2.5g sugar. My BG is far more likely to be troubled by the 15g of carbs in the toast than overwhelmed by the 2.5g of sucrose in the jam it seems to me!

 

[grovesy]

I personally find I can only eat a few strawberries.

 

[trophywench]

You know the individual portions of jam you get with your breakfast toast in hotels? Well that's far too much for me! I adore literally a scrape of apricot jam on toast and both husbands have always complained at my choice, cos one 'tub' of it isn't enough for them so they expect me to have the same flavour as them and thus supply them with extra!

 

[mikeyB]

But you are a T1, Jenny. I used to make both jam and marmalade. Eating it wasn't a problem if I was careful with the amount of marmalade on my breakfast toast and matching the bolus of insulin. DAFNE means exactly what it says.

 

[ColinUK]

I found this recipe, but the jam will only keep for 3 to 4 days.

300g of fruit ( e,g raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, peaches)
2 tablespoons chia seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla extract ( or more to add extra sweetness)

Blend in a food processor for a couple of minutes until it thickens up, and store in airtight jar in the fridge.

Blueberries, chia seeds, a little water and perhaps some xylitol could be interesting

 

[Sally W]

For a few years I was a laboratory technician in a jam factory

Strictly speaking, you cannot have low sugar jam as by law anything called jam must have a minimum sugar content in order to preserve it. That's why you can leave an opened jar of jam in a cupboard for weeks & months

IIRC the level was 61,5% TDS = Total Dissolved Solids, though it was years ago and I could be mistaken over the exact figure, but it was somewhere around that

The way to achieve that is to mix fruit, sugar, and pectin then boil it, which evaporates off some of the water, and breaks everything down to create the sticky/glutinous/jelly- like structure we call jam

Commercial and home made jams use the same sort of method.
Top quality jam is mostly fruit & sugar, with cheaper jams having more pectin

You can get so called low sugar jam. These are various spreads and compotes containing less sugar but more pectin and artificial sweeteners to obtain the required structure & consistency and sweetness

Search Google and YouTube for 'low sugar jam'
There are several types available to buy, and recipes

As these contain less sugar they must be kept in a fridge, and have a shorter shelf life

Here's a suggestion - make your own or buy best quality jam or homemade jam from summer fetes and so on
They will usually have a higher fruit content resulting in a stronger flavour, so you will need less of it

I remember years ago, before I had D seeing a recipe for apricot spread made by simmering together soaked chopped dried apricots, spices, and a very small amount of brown sugar to make a 'jam' that had the minimum of sugar
It did mention that it had to be kept in the fridge

@Sally W may be able to help, wouldn't be a proper "jam" of course but hey ho xx

@Kaylz sorry not been on forum so just seen this, yes recipe I’ve used is this https://lowcarbyum.com/chia-raspberry-jam/ - you can use strawberries and replace sweetener with troo. Also, I freeze most of it as without sugar it’s not preserved so shortish life in fridge

 

[NotWorriedAtAll]

Ingredients: Strawberries, chia seeds, optional sweetener, optional vanilla.
Time to make - five minutes.
Chilling time: until you want to eat it.
They will keep in the fridge for four or five days because the microwaving will kill any bacteria so it gives you a few more days of storage.

Strawberries - frozen or fresh (I prefer frozen so I can make a small amount at a time and eat it within a day it is so quick to do I don't see the point in making it in larger amounts)

Microwave them until they go mushy.

While they are still warm (straight out of the microwave) mix in sweetener of your choice to taste.
If you like a bit of vanilla then add some (I have a vanilla grinder so I just grind a bit in) mix in chia seeds - the amount depends on how much volume of strawberry slush you have. Stir it in and let it cool to lukewarm and then put it into a container and put it in the fridge where it will thicken even more. The only carbs will be the carbs in the strawberries originally. Treat it the same as strawberries when working out how much to eat/use. This has a very powerful strawberry flavour so a little goes a long way.

If I have a glut of strawberries I freeze them as strawberries and then make 'jam' as and when I need it.

This works for all berries and is best with seedy ones because you don't notice the chia seeds so much