I have been holding this post back a little while because I was still trying to work out the best way to make it in my breadmaker. The general recipe suggests I use gelatine or pudding powder, something I wanted to avoid for obvious reasons.
I tried agar-agar instead, which is a jelly-like substance obtained from red algae seaweed.
Just to stop you right there – this is in no way more off-putting than boiled down bone marrow, skin and connective tissues (sinews, ligaments) of animals to extract collagen to make the gelling agent called gelatine.
Anyway, this is what I managed to create in my Tower Digital Breadmaker.
I used damsons from the trees in our garden, washed and stoned them. If they are really ripe, you can just squeeze the stones out, otherwise, slice the with a sharp knife and then remove the stone.
Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay
The recipe
I used two parts of fruit, one part preserving sugar. I got about 800 grams of fruit (without the stones!) and 400 grams of sugar and then I added about four tablespoons of agar-agar. I was looking at one tablespoon per 200 to 250 grams of fruit.
Tip all the ingredients into your bread pan, remember to fit the paddles as it will need to be stirred and select the jam function.
I used two old Bonne Maman jars which I sterilised in a hot oven after removing the labels. I boiled the lids in a small saucepan.
The result
A bit thinnish, but definitely delicious. It tastes fabulous on porridge, especially made with millet flakes.
Enjoy!
Josephine x
