I've usurped the Queen of Posting!

I didn't mean to usurp her position, it just happened. I wanted to show my Mum a good birthday, so I did the natural thing that any crazy devoted baking obsessed daughter would do. I sent a cake in the post! I mean, it's just not a proper birthday without a cake.

Thing is, I couldn't stop there. I had to send a present too. Now this year I had totally failed to find anything in the shops that I thought she'd like, and having no help whatsoever in the form of hints I had to fall back on the "I promise I'll get you something nice when we're on holiday" promise. Which still didn't help the fact that I didn't have much to give her on the day. Then I came across some blackcurrants. Sconto!

My Mum LOVES blackcurrants, and second to having them in a pie, blackcurrant jam is her favourite way to enjoy them. Now I wasn't about to attempt pie-posting - that really would require some extra special posting skills - but I reckoned that a jar of homemade blackcurrant jam would be do-able, and just the thing.

So I set off on a jam making adventure! It was lots of fun, and the smell in the flat was amazing and more than made up for England's continued inability to play decent football.

I simmered the fruit with some water:
Meanwhile sterilizing the jars:Then added the sugar:
and brought it to a rolling boil:
Then when it reached setting point I but it in the jars and sealed it, adding labels and preparing it for postage!

I packaged it with the cake and sent it off, relieved to hear the next day that it had arrived in one piece. I then had a lovely text this morning saying how pleased Mum was with the presents and cake and how I must now be crowned the Queen of Posting!

Well, I will accept the title for now, but I'm sure it won't be long before the real Queen of Posting (my Mum, who else!) will be back.