Orange jam

“The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today,” said the White Queen in “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.” 

• 

  Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday―well, do it yourself and you can finally have jam today. We tested this recipe from Receptcentralen.se, and we give it thumbs up.

• Well, make your own jam and you can have it today, too. We found this recipe at Receptcentralen.se, tweaked it a bit (we didn’t have ascorbic acid but it still turned out firm and we used a little less sugar and the jam was still nice and sweet). Well worth trying.

• Ingredients:
  2 pounds oranges
  4 cups water
  3 pounds sugar (we used only 2 pounds sugar)
  optional 1 tablespoon ascorbic acid

• Wash the oranges carefully, cut each orange in four pieces and cut each piece in thin slices.
  Collect all seeds in a piece of gauze fabric and tie it.
  Put fruit and the seeds in the gauze bag in a big pot with a thick bottom, pour on the water. Bring to a boil and let boil until the peel is soft, 30 to 40 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and remove the gauze bag of seeds. Stir in the sugar, a little at a time, and stir until dissolved. Return the pot to the heat and bring to a full boil, uncovered, until the jam becomes a bit thick and hazy (the recipe says 40 to 50 minutes; we let it boil 1 hour and 15 minutes). Stir occasionally.
  To make sure the jam is ready, put 1 to 2 teaspoons on a cold plate, and refrigerate it for a minute. Take it out and make a groove in it with your finger. If the groove stays, the jam is ready. Lift the pot from the heat, remove any foam. Dissolve the ascorbic acid in a bit of the ready jam and then stir it into the rest. Pour the jam into hot, clean jars with lids and keep in fridge.