Leftovers strawberry and orange jam.

Leftovers jam is the only kind I make with any regularity. I like the random results it produces, never the same jam twice, impossible to buy in a shop.

I had friends over this weekend, and somehow ended up with vast quantities of strawberries. Given they were already beginning to muddle down into their own juices, I knew they were not going to last long enough to consume fresh. Freezing strawberries is a waste of time, it ruins the texture. Jam, then.

Overripe strawberries are not ideal for making jam, as they contain almost no pectin. This is the naturally occurring substance in fruit which interacts with acid, sugar and heat to create a gel which ultimately forms jam. There's a great exploration of it here.

Strawberries are also naturally low in acid, which the pectin needs if it is to work its magic. Citrus fruits have lots of both pectin and acid (which is why marmalade always sets), and many jam recipes call for the addition of lemon juice or lemon peel. I would definitely need to add some citrus.

I removed the leaves and halved or quartered the strawberries depending on size, discarding any particularly mushy fruit. I weighed the fruit and found I had 1100g. I began by adding 50% sugar, so I had 1650g total in the saucepan. I began heating this very slowly on the hob.

I did not have any lemons, but I did have two oranges left over from making white sangria. With overripe strawberries I was not worried about adding too much pectin and creating a slab of strawberry toffee. I zested both oranges, chopped the zest finely and added it to the strawberries. I squeezed the juice into the saucepan and tied all the peel into a muslin bag to keep the seeds out of the eventual jam.

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Now I definitely had "strawberry and orange jam" I decided to check The Flavour Thesaurus to see if there were any suggestions here. Enthused by Ms Segnit's description of strawberry, orange and creme Chantilly as a "sparkling combination" I added a couple of tablespoons of vanilla extract. Finally I added a decent pinch of salt to enhance the overall flavour.

I let the jam simmer for around 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, as the strawberries released their juices into a fragrant bubbling bath. The liquid reduced down, but did not seem to be gelling. I noticed that small pieces of strawberry were beginning to catch on the bottom of the pan, not quite burning, but it wouldn't be long. This suggested there wasn't much water left (pro tip: water doesn't burn), but it was still taking up the pectin rather than the sugar. Therefore the solution was to add more sugar, which I did, also turning down the heat. About ten minutes later, after deciding the jam really should be setting by now, I added a bit more sugar. (I did not measure it either time.) This time it worked. Spooning a little jam onto a cold plate and pushing it with my finger, it had a small but satisfactory wrinkle.

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I poured it into two sterilised containers and left it on the counter until morning, when I tested it for breakfast.

In terms of texture the fruit has mostly broken down, but it's definitely still jam rather than "spread". It is obviously filled with strawberry seeds. It is just verging on chewy: possibly because I evaporated slightly too much water trying to get the pectin to gel before I added that extra sugar.

The flavour is really excellent: the initial burst of strawberry given some serious depth by the orange; with a subtle scent of vanilla lingering over it all.