Apple Jam

I've been cooking again, it's all I seem to be doing lately (and my waistband has noticed!) Currently I'm obsessed with the Coles FREE Christmas magazine which has soooooo many awesome recipes in it. One of which is this Apple Jam recipe which I made last weekend. 

I'm a huge fan of dressing up my little jars of goodness. It doesn't take much, in this case a piece of brown paper, some jute twine and a gum-nut.

Here I am with my magazine, cutting up my apples.

Apple Jam:

1.5 Kg Green Granny Smith (or similar) apples, peeled and cut.
3 Lemons - Juiced and Lemon Rind finely grated.
2 Cups Apple Juice
1.5 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
1.5 Kg White Sugar (or 1Kg if you don't like your jam too sweet like me)

1 - Place chopped apples into a large saucepan along with apple juice, lemon juice and grated rind. Cook apples until soft (approx 20 minutes). If you still have some lumps of apple, get the potato masher in your mix and give it a bit of a mash.
2 - Add sugar and stir with a wooden spoon until sugar has dissolved. Add cinnamon. Increase temperature and bring to the boil. Cook rapidly until setting point is reached (see note).
3 - Ladle jam into sterilised jars.

Note: setting point should be approx 20 minutes later. To test this, place a plate in the freezer until cooled. Place approx 1 tsp jam on the cooled plate and the jam should crinkle when pushed with a finger. To sterilise jars, wash jars and place them into a 180 degree oven for 20 minutes.

The jam tastes like cinnamon stewed apples and is a lovely sweet jam (even though I didn't put the full amount of sugar in, it was quite sweet). It made six good sized jars of jam, some of which I plan on giving to the neighbours for Christmas and others I'll keep for my morning toast! Yummo.

Also: if you have access to a Coles near you, I'd highly recommend picking up your own copy of this FREE magazine. There are lots of lovely recipes and most are simple to re create.