Well it started beautifully . .  . 

• 800g of home grown Strawberries
• 500g of Preserving Sugar (with pectin)  This is much less than the recipe but it still tastes tooth-achingly sweet to me.

• Stir over gentle heat until the sugar has melted. Magic! Glorious strawberries swimming in juice. But then you have to turn up the heat and keep stirring until it reaches 105°C (extremely hot). I kept testing the temperature and it wouldn’t move beyond 102 until I put the lid on the pan and poked the jam thermometer in at the edge. An anxious and very hot process. Then 105 is reached at last. Success – and three very small jars of jam!