Sweet Chestnut Jam

Sweet Chestnut Jam

I picked around 2kg of nuts from a couple of locations as 2023 has been a bit of a naff year for sweet chestnuts due to the very wet summer… about 500g went in to the compost as they’d gone black or were a home to a little larvae so you only actually need 1.5ish kg of nuts or you could scale it down 

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To make the jam….

1.5kg of shelled nuts

Enough water to cover them in a pan

1 lemon zest

800g of sugar

Vanilla extract or a pod

150ml of the tastiest rum you can get your hands on!

•Cover the nuts with water and simmer for 1 hour so they’re soft

•remove the nuts from the water (don’t throw away the water!!!)

•add the sugar to the water and continue to simmer gently until the sugar has dissolved

• add the nuts back to the sugary water and use a stick blender to whizz it to a smooth paste

•add the rum and vanilla and simmer for about 10-15mins (lid on it bloops out of the pan very high and it’s very hot!!!) also stir carefully so it doesn’t burn and stick to the bottom of the pan!

•add to sterilised warm jars and then boil the jars using a traditional canning method (I didn’t do this last year and they went fizzy!)

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This stuff is magical it’s like Nutella but way better!!!