I’ve been remiss of late, what with a new job, going out more and the court case I’ve not had the inclination, or if I’m being honest, the energy to have a cooking day so things like baking bread, making pancakes or even cooking ahead have all fallen by the wayside…that is until this morning!!

I woke up with the urge to make bread so started my morning with a mug of tea and a good knead!! Whilst the bread spent an hour or 2 raising I started to look round for other cooking ideas and decided on pancakes as a surprise for the dazzler, one of his favourites with a twist, I knew there were some red currants in the garden that I needed to use up so they were going into the mix together with some blueberries and lemon zest.

When I got to the bottom of the garden I had a surprise!! We have tonnes of red currants and a whole bush of black currants that I’d forgotten about. There was nothing for it, I had to make no added sugar blackcurrant Jam!! A quick search of the web produced these guidelines for sugar free jam making which I used as a guideline and then started away.

Ingredients
500g blackcurrants
200g stevia
1 tbs honey
200ml water
Juice of a lemon

Method
Add blackcurrants & water to the pan & bring to boil
Simmer for 20 minutes until its slightly thickened
Add stevia, lemon juice & honey & bring to the boil
Boil away till the mixture reaches 220 degrees
Keep a rolling boil for 5 minutes
Take off the boil, skim the foam from the top and then decant into jars.

I know the guidelines say you need pectin added but It turns out blackcurrants have a large proportion of their own pectin which made this recipe work . I used stevia for this and added a squirt of honey just for sweetness and the result was delightfully jammy, if a little more runny than traditional jam. I’m going to try making red currant jelly and jam tomorrow using up the tonnes of redcurrants I have too!!

By the time the Dazzler got back from the gym I’d started on a brown loaf, had the white one in the oven and had made both the jam and the pancake mix…not bad for a Saturday mornings work!!