I flew back to Brisbane very early this morning after a weekend in Darwin. I proceeded to crash for two hours and then went to work. This leads to me not knowing what time it is or what day it is...and this leads to baking and jam making.
I made my usual lazy girl bread (I'll post the recipe soon) and some rhubarb jam. I'd bought the rhubarb last week, not really sure what I would do with it. Then I stumbled across this recipe on one of my favourite blogs and decided to tweak it a little.
The jam turned out quite nicely, a good balance of sweet and tart with a lovely delicate vanilla flavour. The best thing is that my partner (who "doesn't like jam or rhubarb") gobbled it up while still warm.
Rhubarb, apple and vanilla bean jam
makes 4 small jars
5 cups of chopped rhubarb
2 apples peeled and diced
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1/2 vanilla bean, split and scraped
1 lemon, juiced
pinch of salt
Sterilise your jars in a large pot of boiling water. Put a saucer in the freezer for the set test later. In a large heavy based saucepan, bring the rhubarb, apple, sugar and water to a boil. Add the vanilla bean, lemon and salt to the pot and let it bubble gently for about twenty minutes. I squished the apple with the back of a spoon as I didn't want apple chunks in the jam but you could leave them. Check the set of the jam by spreading a teaspoon of jam on your frozen saucer. If you can run your pinky finger through the jam puddle and the furrow remains the jam is done. Also taste at this point, to see if you like the balance of flavors. Pour into hot jars, apply lids. Process in a hot water bath for ten minutes. Remove from water and let cool.
