Looking for a simple, homemade spiced apple and cinnamon jam recipe?
Christmas can be such a busy and expensive time of the year, so finding ways to make it that little bit cheaper can be a game changer. Simple money saving hacks that still allow you to enjoy Christmas and spoil your loved ones.
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One great way to do this is by making gifts for your friends and family. Christmas gifts that come from the heart instead of your pocket.
The first awesome Christmas hack is this delicious homemade spiced apple and cinnamon jam recipe. It’s really quick and easy to make, plus, you can make it ahead of time, ready to give to friends and family at Christmas.
The cinnamon flavour just screams Christmas, plus, there’s nothing better than the smell of cinnamon wafting from room to room. Then of course the fresh apple goes beautifully with the cinnamon and the dates give it a deep, rich texture, bringing it to another level.
Why Make Homemade Jam?
Making your own homemade spiced apple and cinnamon jam is likely to be more expensive, more time consuming and a lot messier. However, making your own jam, whether it’s strawberry jam, apple jam, or even blackcurrant, is so much better than buying it from a store.
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- You get to include the ingredients you want
- You know what’s in it
- Decorate the jar as you like
- Make them into thoughtful gifts for friends and family
- Plus, one batch of this homemade jam recipe could last you for years!
Make It Your Own
The first thing to do is to choose the jar you want your homemade jams to go in. Will these jams be going into small food hampers? Are they just for you to store in your pantry?
Can you get away with using old glass jars of varying sizes and shapes? It really depends on what/who you are making this homemade jam for to decide on the type of jar you use.
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Once you’ve chosen your jam jar, the next job is to find yourself some really pretty labels for your jars and the decoration. Perhaps you could use some cinnamon sticks, ribbon, or even a bow or two?! I get all these items from searching through eBay as it seems to be the cheapest place to go, even better than going to places like Hobby Craft, which actually isn’t very cheap at all!
Recipe Ingredients
Makes approximately 10 x 450g jars
- 3kg of cooking apples (weigh after chopping, peeling and coring)
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 10 cloves
- 2kg brown sugar
- 750g light muscovado sugar
- Juice of 2 lemons
- 100g stoned medjool dates
Recipe Method
Cooking time – 50 minutes.
- Firstly, put an empty plate in the freezer and leave it there. A cold plate will help you later on in the recipe.
- Put the fruit and sugar into a large pan with the cinnamon sticks, cloves and lemon juice. Slowly heat until the sugar starts to melt.
- Increase the heat, stirring often to prevent the sugar from catching on the pan. Bring to the boil until the apples have softened and the liquid has started to turn golden which should take around 15 to 20 minutes. (If you still have some apple chunks left, that’s fine).
- Add the chopped dates and continue to simmer for between 30 minutes to one hour and keep stirring often. (The mixture is likely to spit up so do be careful as it’s like Lava!)
- To test and see if it’s ready for setting, spoon a small amount onto the plate from the freezer. Lightly, run your finger down the jam on the plate, if it wrinkles and parts cleanly, then it’s ready. If not, continue to boil for a little while longer and keep testing small amounts.
- Once you have the homemade apple and cinnamon jam ready for setting, decant it into your sterilised jars and seal them. (Washed in hot soapy water and dried upside down in the oven at 110C for 30 minutes).
- Leave the jam jars to cool completely and then decorate your jars as you wish and set them aside, ready for Christmas gifts. If you want your jam to cool quicker, place the jars into a room temperature water bath.
Recipe Notes
Once you have the basic recipe, you can change the ingredients to create other varieties of jam – raspberry jam is another very simple one to make at home. Although, you can make almost any kind of jam using fresh fruit of your choice, mixed with some sugar.
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You could even save this spiced apple and cinnamon jam recipe to use as a filling for something like an apple pie. A few dollops drizzled into the pie whilst it’s still warm, or perhaps you could water it down slightly and have it as most of a sauce over ice cream!
W’d love to know if you try this homemade spiced apple and cinnamon jam recipe.
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