By Keighley’s Mike Armstrong, an award-winning master baker with a big passion for baking...

WITHOUT strawberry jam, the cream tea would be a colourless affair and the Victoria sandwich an ordinary sponge.

In my memory, it takes me back to the golden sun-blessed summers of the late 70s, when skateboards and chopper bikes were cool and the taste of summertime was strawberry picking; softer and sweeter than the fruits I buy today, they were forever teetering on that fine line between ripe and rotten!

Homemade strawberry jam, with its mushy, syrupy flavour, always came with a lurid scoopful of ice cream rather than a sprinkling of black pepper.

In jam form, of course, the strawberry is the perfect complement when sitting on a tartan picnic rug and eating scones and slices of Victoria sponge. And the homemade version is infinitely better than anything you can buy in the shops – less sugary, more fruity and above all, sticky with good old-fashioned nostalgia. What could be more British than that?

As we go into the summer season, the sunshine works wonders on our strawberry harvest. I brought a punnet home this week that were amongst the most sublime I have ever eaten: British, rich, sweet, intense – pure strawberry perfection.

There is much pleasure to be had in making homemade jam – the languorous stirring of soft fruits and melting sugar, the methodical cleaning of jam jars that we learned about at school, the rich dribble of scarlet jam running down the sides of over-filled jars. Making your own jam is not dissimilar to making a loaf of bread, in that it can change your opinion of your own cooking skills – the sense of accomplishment that you can bake and preserve and have got a supposedly mysterious craft so deliciously right. And when you press that sticky handwritten label on the side of the jar, there is a sense of doing something a bit grown up for once!

I do fight being a baker who can make bread well and move onto jam making – what next, maybe flower arranging? Life is all about learning new crafts and skills.

Homemade jam will always win prizes at local shows, and is worthy of a Women's Institute rosette!

RECIPE

STRAWBERRY JAM

Makes 3 large jars

Ingredients:

1kg/2lb 2oz English strawberries

800g/1lb 8oz granulated sugar

Juice of a fresh lemon

Method:

1. Sterilise the jam jars first by washing them out in boiling water and placing them in a cooling oven until ready to be filled ­– do not dry with a tea towel.

2. Wash the strawberries and remove the stalks. Keep the small ones whole, and half and quarter the large ones.

3. Toss them into a large pan with the sugar and lemon juice and bring to the boil.

4. Boil rapidly for 15 minutes or until translucent, stirring occasionally, spooning off any pink froth as you go.

5. Test the jam is ready by dropping a small amount onto a saucer from the freezer, then push a finger through to see that it’s set and not runny.

6. Carefully spoon the hot jam into the warm sterilised jars, seal with a wax or homemade greaseproof disc, label and date. Once open, store in the fridge.