My dad always asked my grandmother (his mother): “Are you having bread with jam or jam with bread?”

This has become a favorite saying of ours around the table when I bake fresh bread and we eat jams with cheese. My girlfriend, @urban.scout, is also familiar with this predicament, as she likes to lather copious amounts of jam onto her bread.

Recently, the fig tree produced many kilograms of figs for us, and the local birds and insects. I have read about the debate regarding people who prefer to eat figs with the skin on or off, but these figs tend to have thicker skins. Also, I do not spray pesticides nor do I deter birds from eating along with us. So, the skins are not perfect, we eat with our eyes after all. But the skins can still be used in jams!

If you never had a freshly picked fig, you are in for a treat.

But in this post, I will show you what I do with the less attractive figs, and the skins. Making jams is not my forte, but I have never liked the one-to-one ratio of fruit and sugar. So, in this recipe, I will use a ratio of 1 part sugar and 3 parts fruit. Is this still a jam? I have no idea. It surely acts like a jam, tastes like one, and kind of looks like one.

So without further ado, I will showcase to you how I make my fig jam using homegrown figs from my garden.

Ingredients

The ingredients for this jam is really simple:

• Whole Figs,
• Fig skins,
• Sugar, and
• Lemon juice.

As mentioned, these were not the most perfect figs. I have left many figs on the tree for the birds and insects to feast on. But I wanted some for myself as well. I picked as many as I could, especially the lower ones on the tree as the birds never like these ones. But as you can see, their skins have blemishes on them, and some have even burst open.

Recipe

So the recipe for this jam is really simple: one part sugar to three parts fruit.

In the end, I had 1400 grams of figs. I decided to add about 450 grams of sugar.

I also added some squirts of lemon juice.

Method and Tips

I have researched how to make fig jam in all of my mother's old cookbooks. It is a South African traditional jam as many farmers planted fig trees in their yards. When I visited my dad's father's brother (my grandfather's brother) I saw so many fig and pomegranate trees on their property, a farm in a part of the country that is very dry and hot. So fig trees are a part of South African tradition, and so also fig jam.

Many recipe books later, I am still not sure how to cook the jam as everyone has their own recipes. From leaving the figs out in the sun for a day to peeling them and discarding the skin, many people have made up their minds about how to cook the jam.

Here I will show you the most simple one, as I am rather lazy sometimes. I see it as a virtue as I find the shortest possible way to the same destination. Sometimes it does not work, but with this fig jam recipe, it worked.

Peel the Figs For Eating

Start by peeling the figs you want to eat. But keep the skins!

Some of the figs are just too good to be used in a jam. You want to eat them straight away!

In a separate bowl, I collected all the skins.

In yet another bowl, I collected the fruits that were either a little underripe or too ripe. I also collected the fruits that were not ideal for eating.

Cut the Skins Into Smaller Pieces

I then proceeded to cut the undesirable fruits into smaller pieces with the skins that I also cut into smaller pieces.

Add the Sugar: Macerate the Fruit

This is an excellent tip I read in one of the cookbooks, but a tip that is general in jam making I think: macerate the figs by adding sugar and waiting for them to bathe in their own juices. It will make the boiling process a lot easier.

After a while, you will see that a lot of liquid has emerged.

Boil for About 45 Minutes

I proceeded to boil the figs for about 45 minutes, or until very sticky. You will need to keep an eye on the jam when most of the excess water has been boiled off.

The thickness depends on how long you boil them. A thick jam is always better.

Bottle up!

After the boiling process, you will need to bottle the jam. Use glass bottles that can withstand heat.

I ended up making about four jars of jam. For me, that is plenty!

Wait till It Is Cold

Put them in the fridge and wait till it is cooled, preferably overnight. As this fig jam is made for immediate consumption, I am not bothering with boiling them to sterilize the jam. I am not planning on storing them for a long time.

Check the photograph below, you can still see one of the figs floating like a jellyfish!

Spead it on Bread!

Use some freshly baked bread and load it with lots of this jam. I did just this: I loaded the bread with lots of jam!

You can see the consistency is not that of normal jam, because I only used a third of the amount of sugar. But the fig taste is so strong, it is like eating ripe figs!

Postscriptum, or When Life Gives You Figs Make Fig Jam

This was one of the better jams I have made in my life because of the fresh ingredients. I have tried to make jams from frozen fruit but it is not the same.

But also, this feels less unhealthy because of the little sugar I added. It is way more fruit than sugar.

In any case, I hope you try this recipe! It is really awesome.

Please let me know in the comments if you made this, or if you are a fan of figs!

All of the photographs are my own, the recipe is also my own creation, albeit an amalgamation of all the recipes I found in my investigation. I hope you are well, happy cooking!