Mango-Orange Jam

Since I'm into bread-making lately, some homemade jam would be lovely with homemade bread. My son requested for some mango jam, he loves the one I made before, Mango-Lime Jam. This time I decided to make this Mango-Orange Jam instead, adapted from "The Joy of Jams, Jellies, and Other Sweet Preserves" by Linda Ziedrich, with some changes to the recipe. The original recipe has the option of adding in 1/2 cup of crystallized ginger, since my kids do not like ginger in their jam, I omitted that, though if giving me a choice, I would love to include some crystallized ginger, another time perhaps.

Make sure the mangoes that you use are ripe. Chop them up to small cubes and boil them together with about 3/4 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice. Boil until the mangoes are soft and tender.

Remove from heat and mashed up mangoes using a potato masher. Stir in some sugar, I use about slightly less than 3/4 cup (the original recipes uses 3 cups of sugar). I added in about 2 tablespoons of lemon juice as a I like my jam to be a little bit tangy. Stir till sugar dissolves and return to heat, simmer and stir until jam is thick or to the consistency you want. As usual, I like my jam a little runny, as they will thicken up when stored in the fridge. It may take awhile, about 30-40 minutes of stirring as I only used 3/4 cup of sugar, if the full 3 cups of sugar is used, it would take a shorter time for the jam to thicken.

I got four jars of jam, about less than a cup each, (fourth is not in the photo). Gave two jars to my friends and kept two to eat with our homemade bread. Since my version has much less sugar, it would be better to refrigerate them as soon as they are cool. Sugar acts as a preservative in jam making and it reacts with the pectin in fruits to form the gel structure into thickening the jam. Since I do not like overly sweet jam, I usually do a small batch of jam and refrigerate them as soon as they are cool. It is a good idea to use small glass jars to store the jam, that way, the opened jar would be used up in shorter time, and keeping the rest of the jars of jam fresh untouched until it's time to open another one. Besides, making a  small batch  is also an excuse to try my hands at making another flavour when all my jam has been used up! :)

Lovely colour from the mangoes.

And tastes delicious!

My daughter loves eating the jam this way, butter both sides of bread, toast till crispy, cut into soldiers, dip and scoop some jam and enjoy!

I'm sharing this with :
Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage


Mango-Orange Jam
(adapted from "The Joys of Jams, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves" by Linda Ziedrich)
2 pounds peeled and diced mango (I use about 1kg)
2/3 cup orange juice (I use 3/4 cup)
3 cups sugar (I use 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup crystallized ginger, store-bought or homemade (I omit this)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (my addition)

1. Put the mango cubes and orange juice into a preserving pan. Stirring often, simmer until the mango is tender. Remove the pan from the heat and mash the mango lightly with a potato masher.
2. Add the sugar and lemon juice to the pan. Over medium heat, stir until the sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat to medium-high and boil the jam until a drop mounds in a chilled dish.
3. Ladle the jam into hot sterilized pint or half-pint mason jars. Add lids and rings, and process the jars in a boiling-water bath, for 10 minutes.