Duchy Originals

Apricot Preserve

We believe food should look and taste of its ingredients. That might sound obvious, but open a jar of jam and chances are you’ll be confronted by some kind of clear, smooth, homogenous jelly. What happened to the fruit?

It should all be so different. Real jam is something to be made on a warm, summer’s afternoon, with the fruit of bushes and vines laden down with more ripe, juicy berries than you’d ever be able to eat. It’s hard work, but jam making is a satisfying process that’s barely changed in hundreds of years.

For our Apricot Preserve, they put roughly even quantities of fruit and organic sugar into copper-bottomed pans – about 25kg of each depending on how juicy the fruit is. Before it’s boiled and hand-stirred, our jam makers also add a little citric acid and pectin, a natural setting agent so the jam isn’t too sloppy. The rest is down to the skill and judgment of the jam maker, who will try to make sure different sizes of fruit are mixed into each batch to keep the jam a little rustic and interesting.

The result is a glorious, rich, fruity jam and looks and tastes of, well, fruit. It’s a surprise more food companies haven’t caught on to the idea.