Rhubarb & Banana Jam

Late summer in the garden: rhubarb flopping everywhere, huge bunches of bananas ripening at once, and then reading in a gardening magazine that Rhubarb & Banana Jam is a thing – and a delicious one at that. Who would have thought it?

I wasn’t 100% convinced to start with so I added a few strawberries as well to give it some more flavour and juice, and used a tried and true simple jam making method that uses jam setting sugar (with pectin already included for you).

500g rhubarb stalks
400g banana flesh
200g hulled strawberries (I used frozen)
1kg jam setting sugar
~10g knob of butter

Chop the rhubarb stalks and strawberries into small pieces. You can put all the fruit into a blender but I prefer my jam to have lumps of fruit in it.

Mix the sugar through the rhubarb and strawberries and leave to macerate for a few hours (or overnight).

Mash the bananas and add to the other fruit in a preserving pan.

Heat gently, stirring continuously, until the sugar dissolves. Then increase temperature to bring to the boil and boil jam for 4 minutes only. Test to see if jam setting stage has been reached by putting a small amount on a cold saucer and, if it is ready, it will wrinkle when you push your finger through it. If not set then boil another minute and retest.

Pour into hot, sterilised jars and seal.