How To Make Rose Hip Jam

Homemade Jam Recipes

Ingredients: Rose Hip Jam Recipe

4 lb / 1,800 grams of large, fully ripened rose hips (cultivated or wild)
2 1/2 lb / 1,150 grams of white granulated sugar
2 cooking apples
2 lemons
1 oranges
17 fl oz / 500 ml of water

Method - What To Do

Long after all of the rose petals have fallen and the days are beginning to get shorter, rose hips come along and offer the avid jam maker another chance to utilise this climbing flowering plant and make use of this unusual recipe. By picking rose hips, you will help to save costs, since the principal ingredient for this recipe will be completely free.

Rose hips are packed with vitamin C and in fact contain ten times as much as oranges, as well as offering high levels of vitamin A and a number of important trace elements. Therefore, although this jam could never quite be called 'healthy' as such, due to the high sugar content, it will certainly boost your vitamin intake.

Wash the rose hips and cut into slices, so that you can remove all of the seeds easily. Place the slices of rose hips (without the seeds) into a saucepan. Peel the skin off the orange and chop the flesh into pieces, and add this flesh to the pan (without the skin). Next, peel and core the apples, and then slice, combining these apple slices with the rose hips and orange chunks in the pan.

Scrub the lemons (preferably use unwaxed lemons) and grate the zest into a bowl to use later. Squeeze the juice of these lemons over the rose hips and other fruit, and then pour over the water. Place all of the discarded apple peelings, apple cores, orange skin and lemon halves into a muslin bag and place this bag of 'leftovers' into the mixture - this will add additional pectin and help with the setting of the jam.

Bring the mixture to a low boil and simmer away for 20 minutes. After this time, remove the pan from the cooker and take out the muslin bag, squeezing out any juices so that they are not wasted. Mix in the sugar and keep mixing until all of the sugar crystals disappear into the rose hip jam mixture. When the sugar is finally dissolved, place the pan back onto the stove and turn up the heat, boiling away for ten minutes. Be sure to stir well throughout the cooking period, to prevent any chance of the jam sticking or even worse, burning.

Test your jam by dripping a spoonful onto a cold plate, so that you can check its thickness and see if it quickly begins to set (within a minute). If this is the case and your rose hip jam is ready to set, take the pan off the heat and leave it to cool for a moment. If you feel that your jam is not going to set well in its current state, boil it for a further five minutes and then test it again, and for a third time if you need to.

Ladle your rose hip jam into specially prepared and sterilised glass jars and cover with circles of waxed paper, before screwing each of the lids on firmly.

Rose Hip Jam Recipe - More Jam Recipes.