Strawberries — They’re In Season

The Best Spread You’ll Ever Make

I made strawberry hard candy by accident this morning. Strawberries are in season and, in our part of the country, plentiful right now. My husband came home with a big plastic container of them. He chopped them up the other day, and this morning I chopped a bunch of them up smaller. I loaded them into a saucepan, poured some sugar over them, and let them sit for about an hour. I guess the layer of strawberries was a couple of inches deep in the pan.

When I got back to them, they were awash in strawberry juice. This is called macerating fruit, and according to a recipe I looked at online, they said to let them macerate in sugar overnight. When you are going to put strawberries on a bit of cake, that’s how you want to prepare them.

An hour or overnight? Either way is fine.

I set the heat on low. I have burned strawberry jam before, and the last batch I made, which was delicious, I cooked the whole time on a very low flame.

This time, however, I’d used twice the number of strawberries. I know in the recipes they’ve got you adding in tons of sugar, but over time I have reduced it, and now I just eyeball it and put in nowhere near as much as they say to in the recipes. I pour in enough sugar to coat each piece of fruit. Granted, the larger amount of sugar supposedly helps the fruit to jell, but I’m fine with a loose strawberry compote, preserves, or syrupy concoction. So, I don’t measure anymore. I just eyeball it. Also, I’ve had zero amount of luck using Pectin, so I don’t use it anymore.

Right now, the pan is sitting off the heat, cooling enough for me to put it into some small containers. I don’t preserve them in Ball jars. I just pop them into the fridge. We’ll eat it up in the next month, so it’s all easy. Small batches. You can also freeze the jam and it will last longer.

I’d forgotten how high the temperature of the jam needed to be. I’d just measured it, and it was at 205°F. It was supposed to go to 221°, which is 105°C. By the time I got back to the kitchen after checking what temperature the strawberries were supposed to go to, the sound the strawberries were making as they cooked had thickened and was deeper. I was still leery about burning it. I swiped through the bubbling mess with my spatula and scraped up a line of hard, dark stuff.

I thought to myself, “Oh, shit. I think I burned it.” Except I didn’t smell of burnt strawberries. I tasted it, and it did not taste burned. It tasted like strawberries.

I removed the dark, hard mess from the spatula and popped it into my mouth. I wanted to explore this. It turns out the strawberry syrup had gotten so hot that it had turned into hard candy. I figured I would call it done and took the pan off the heat. That’s when I remembered the small white plate I’d put in the freezer some 10 minutes or so before. Another test you can make with the jam or preserves you are making is to dribble a little bit of it onto a cold plate. You let it sit for a few minutes and then draw your finger through the line of strawberry goodness. If your finger leaves a path that does not fill up again, your strawberries are done.

I have to say strawberry jam made this way is better than anything you can buy in a store.

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