Gooseberry jam with vanilla

I have a rowing friend, which lives in my neighbourhood and she has kindly enough let me pick gooseberries in her garden. The Danish name for gooseberry is stikkelsbær, which is very close to sticking berries, a very fitting name for these berries, as the bush is full of thorns !!!

It is very difficult to bye gooseberries in the Danish supermarkets, so I am very pleased, that I good access to the garden of my rowing friend for free berry picking.


Gooseberry Jam:

• 900 g (Danish) gooseberries 
• 50 g water
• 1 vanilla pod - empty of vanilla corn - in small pieces
• 450 g sugar - of which 50 g is used for dry-mixing with pectin and citric acid
• 13 g gelling powder (pectin)
• 3 g citric acid
• 1 teaspoon of white wine vinegar
• preservative - optional

1. Heat up the gooseberries in a cooking pot together with a small amount of water and vanilla pod pieces.
2. When the gooseberries have reach a temperature of 80°C, add the gelling powder and agitate very well.
3. It is important NOT to add the sugar at this stage, as the gelling powder need the water from the fruit to hydrate sufficiently.
4. Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil for 2 minutes.
5. Mash the gooseberries like you would mash potates. This is optional, you can also decide to keep the berries in full shape.
6. 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.
7. Bring the fruit the boiling point again and boil for another 2 minutes.
8. Addition of white wine vinegar, add it by ½ teaspoon by the time, so you can adjust the taste to your own preference.
9. Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards to increase the shelf-life.
10. 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.
11. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.
12. Store cold.