This jam recipe is perfect for beginners since the main ingredient has natural pectin in it, meaning no extra fancy ingredients are needed! Molly loves the tart flavor of the rhubarb and the fact that it turns the jam into a pretty shade of pink. It's ideal to make a big batch—save some for you and use the rest for gift giving!
In a large heavy-bottomed pot, toss the rhubarb with the sugar, cover, and macerate for 1 hour, tossing occasionally. (This intensifies the flavor of the rhubarb; if you need rhubarb jam ASAP, then fine, skip this step.) Stir in the lemon juice, then split and scrape the vanilla bean and add the innards and the scraped bean to infuse the jam with vanilla flavor.
Put on some oven mitts and an apron because things are about to get spitty. Bring the jam to a boil over high (trust me: high) heat and boil, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot continuously with a heat-safe spatula so that the jam doesn’t burn, until the rhubarb is broken down and the jam is very thick, with a temperature of 217 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, 5 to 7 minutes.
Remove from the heat and continue stirring for another minute or two so the residual heat of the pot doesn’t burn the jam. Stir in the rosewater and let cool.
Discard the vanilla bean and store the jam in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a few weeks.
Cook’s Note
There is no salt in this jam because I like to sprinkle it with flaky salt after I spread it on toast.
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