Lønnestræde´s Apple Jam

I have been making apple jam taking inspiration from a cake recipe from the magazine Isabellas February - March 2011 on "Fastelavnsboller med æblefyld". I also discussed this recipe with some of my colleagues working professional with jams. Thank you "fruit ladies" for your recommendations and advice :-))
And finally my neighbour lent me a helping hand, as I did not have any whole cloves in my kitchen cupboard.

I will use this apple jam either for plain yogurt and/or bread with or without cheese.

Ingredients:

• 4 apples 
• sugar - half the amount of the apple mass
• ½ dl water
• 6 g gelling powder (citrus pectin, sugar and citric acid) per 500 g apple & sugar
• ½ vanilla pod
• 3 cardamon kernels
• 2 whole cloves
• peel of 1 lemon - organic
• the fruit part of 1 lemon

• Peel the apples and cut the apple into 1 x 1 cm pieces. The peel from the apple will not be so appealing, while eating the final jam.

• Peel the lemon - without the white part of the peel - cut it in into small pieces. As well cut the fruit part of the lemon into small pieces.
• Remove the vanilla corns from the vanilla pod. Use the vanilla pod as well
• Put the apple into a cooking pot together with the water. Add the gelling powder and agitate.
• It is important NOT to add the sugar at this stage, as the gelling powder need the water from the fruit to hydrate sufficiently.
• Also add the lemon peel & fruit, cardamon kernel, cloves, vanilla corn and vanilla pod.
• Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil until the apple is "al dente" in the bite.
• Add the sugar to the fruit. It is very important, that you add the sugar little by little, while you agitate, in order to pre-gelling/gel lumps in the jam.
• Bring the fruit and sugar to the boiling point again and boil for another 2 minutes.
• I decided not the remove the vanilla pod, cardamon kernels and whole cloves from the jam, before filling the jam into glass jar, as I want to a "stronger" taste of these spices in the jam.

• Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. I do not use any preservatives in my home-made jam, so this is important to increase shelf-life of your jam.
• Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards.
• As the jam is made from 2 parts of fruit and 1 part of sugar, the sugar content is not high enough to preserve the jam.
• Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.