A JAMMY PAN

Yesterday, in the knowledge that my husband would be spending the day watching football, added to which it was raining cats and dogs outside, I decided this would be a good day to make some jam.

I had bought the plums, I had the sugar so I was good to go.

I pulled out my preserving pan and got started. I cooked down the plums with the water, as per recipe instructions, after 40 mins added the sugar brought it to the boil, turned it down and was soon greeted with the smell of burning sugar! This seemed wrong, no, I knew it was wrong. All was not well. Burning sugar is not altogether an unpleasant smell, but not one I had expected with jam making. I turned it off immediately but still it kept bubbling away. I couldn't pour it down the sink, so I sat it in cold water.

Soon I was scraping molten sugar from the bottom of my pan. I was left with a crust of burnt on sugar. I actually considered at this point about just throwing the whole thing in the bin. But this seemed a bit drastic so I set to work on it. This was going to be a long job. Then I remembered having read somewhere about putting some water into the bottom of a pan and to add a dishwasher tablet, and then bring to the boil. It was worth a try.

I watched in amazement as the burnt on crust started to come away and float to the top. I had to repeat it but the result was fantastic. A quick wipe with a cloth and my pan looked good as new. I was so happy. As I thought I would be waving goodbye to it.

So this blog has not provided you with any cooking instructions, but instead, an easy and amazing way to rescue pans. Tuck this away for a day when you might need it.

Decided the problem I had was the pan was too large for amount of jam I was making. So next time I'm going to use smaller pan, I'm not risking losing twice the amount of fruit and sugar. I'll keep you informed.

Well I guess you can't win them all, and you can buy pretty good jams, so maybe I won't be making another attempt at it.