Apple jam with lemon and vanilla

A strong wind can make the apples tumble down from their tree in large quantities, when you can actual eat them as fresh fruit. So one way of "saving" them for later use is to turn them into an apple jam. I decided to twist the taste of this apple jam with a combination of vanilla taking inspiration from another Danish traditional way of eating apple in form of apple mash/compote with vanilla AND lemon (both zest and juice) to boost the fresh fruit flavour of this apple jam, which very easy can become plain sweet in taste.

Apple jam with lemon and vanilla:

• 500 g apple boats - apples being peeled and core removed
• 150 g water
• ½ organic lemon - zest and juice
• ½ vanilla pod - only the vanilla corns
• 350 g jam sugar

1. Cook the apple boat slices in water together with the lemon zest and vanilla corns for 15 minutes in a cooking pot with the lid on.
2. Stir the apple boats into a homogeneous mass.
3. Add jam sugar and lemon juice. Cook everything together for 5 minutes.
4. 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.
5. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.