Stokes Sauces: National Cream Teas Day

One for the sweet tooth

http://www.stokessauces.co.uk/page/sauces/jams-and-marmalade

It's National Cream Tea Day on 28th June.

Britain’s love affair with tea began when Portuguese Catherine de Braganza married Charles II in 1662, bringing the custom of drinking tea at court with her and making tea popular worldwide.

In 1706, Thomas Twining opened London’s first tearoom. Before long, a flurry of tearooms appeared across the city, a far sight more inviting for a lady than the male-oriented coffee houses.

The cream tea tradition flourished in the Westcountry following the tourism boom in the 1850s, brought on by the opening of the railway.

Visitors bustled south looking to relax and indulge, and hotels, tearooms, farmhouses and cafés were happy to oblige – offering delicious afternoon cream teas, made with the finest local ingredients.

We don't believe in minimums

Traditional jam recipes are simple but often time consuming, using equal quantities of fruit and sugar.

Commercial producers can use as little as 350g of fruit per kilo, with some jams using even less fruits and more additives and flavouring. Water and extra sugar are added to create the ‘jam effect’.

‘Extra’ jam has a legal minimum requirement of 450g of fruit per kilo.

We prefer more with our Strawberry, Raspberry and Blackcurrant extra jams.

From 'perfect' to 'oops'

In the Old Stables at Rendlesham, knowing eyes watch over slow cooking blackcurrants, as they simmer, waiting for that very fine line between ‘perfect’ and ‘oops’.

Our kitchen staff have an enviable expertise and are as passionate about their jams, preserves, relishes and sauces as we all are.

But it’s not just the amount of fruit.

Use 50% poor quality blackcurrants and you can only create poor jam.

It's all about ingredients

We go to uncompromising lengths to make sure the blackcurrants we use have that signature juicy sweet / tart flavour; the raspberries are rich, sweet and luscious; and the succulent strawberries have keynotes of Wimbledon.

Stokes use unrefined cane sugar, which is a typical artisan sugar. Produced in smaller batches, it is less processed and retains all or most of the cane molasses around the sugar crystals.

This natural sweetness and additional depth of flavour simmer gently with the extra fruit to give the deeply flavoursome jams we love to deliver.

Lemon Curd

Stokes Lemon Curd is a truly wonderful thing with lemons, rich butter and British free range eggs.

A simple recipe, simply made and simply delicious...

... It's delicious on toast, pancakes, lemon tarts and delicious in lemon sponges, lemon drizzle cakes and much, much more.

Enjoy !

Jam, as in 'Mam'