Jams like Meghan’s sell for £200 – but here’s how I made her hilariously over-the-top jam basket for £16.99!

Made from strawberries from her sun-drenched California garden, decanted into jars with handwritten labels and delivered in bountiful presentation baskets to an elite group of friends and influencers, this is no ordinary jam.

For almost two weeks, the debut product from American Riviera Orchard, Meghan Markle’s elusive new lifestyle brand, has been making waves on social media.

Jars have appeared on the Instagram profiles of those closest to her, including comedian Mindy Kaling, polo player Nacho Figueras and actress Abigail Spencer, who belted out “This jam is my jam” — and draped herself over a pot for a fawning outdoor photo shoot. . No, no names we would recognize here, but let’s be honest: we are not her target group.

Not that anyone can buy a jar anymore. According to the batch numbers on the labels, only 50 jams exist. Each was lovingly created by Meghan herself, in the £12 million mansion she shares with Prince Harry and their two children in Montecito, Santa Barbara.

For those unaware, actress and Duchess Meghan, 42, was also a spice chef, and she claims her green thumb is nothing new.

Sarah Rainey recreates Abigail’s look after making her own strawberry jam

“Growing up in Southern California, I loved gardening and growing my own vegetables,” she has said. A more recent Martha Stewart-style makeover is of course linked to an upcoming Netflix documentary about her rural life.

The Sussexes certainly have the space for a fruit and vegetable garden: their nine-bedroom home features an expansive backyard lined with fragrant orange trees, flower beds and a wildflower meadow.

It’s a passion she shares with her father-in-law, King Charles, whose Duchy organic strawberry jam comes from organic British fruit farms and sells for £2.80 at Waitrose.

But experts say Meghan’s ultra-glam jam could cost a lot more – if it ever becomes available to the public.

American Riviera Orchard has been compared to Californian luxury brand Flamingo Estate, which stocks a jar of celebrity honey for an eye-watering $250 (£200).

You won’t find it on the shelves of your local Tesco either: it’s more likely to be sold somewhere like the high-end grocer Erewhon Market in Los Angeles, where a large bottle of milk costs £15.

The jam is the first – and only – product to bear the American Riviera Orchard logo, which was supposed to hit the market on March 14 but has remained strangely quiet since then. Trademarks filed under the brand name show that Meghan also plans to produce cutlery, cookbooks and more jarred foods, as well as foods such as marmalade and jelly.

Sarah’s family are prolific strawberry jam makers and she learned to make jam as a child

Sarah says her jam is sweet, summery and quite spectacular on toast… and costs just £4 a jar

So what’s in this oh-so-special jar? Without an ingredient list or nutritional information, it’s difficult to know exactly how Meghan makes her preserves.

She didn’t share a recipe for jam in the cooking section of her now-defunct pre-Harry lifestyle website, The Tig, nor in Together, the cookbook she supported in 2018 by women whose communities were affected by Grenfell Tower. firework.

As luck would have it, though, my family are prolific strawberry jam makers (and indeed jam makers). I learned to make jam as a child, using a time-tested method passed down from my Great Aunt May, whose faded, handwritten recipe has become so beloved in my family that my husband and I gave mini jars of jam as favors at our wedding in 2015 .

To start, you’ll need strawberries: 680g is enough to make four medium-sized pots (which means the Duchess will need a whopping 8.5kg for 50 pots).

The climate in rural Suffolk, where I live, is somewhat different from the balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit of Montecito, so spring strawberries are few and far between – but I do manage to track down a few punnets of locally grown strawberries in my local deli for £3.50 each. I start by peeling them (remove the green top), halve them and put them in a pan on a very low heat with 800 grams of sugar.

Now this may seem like a lot of sugar for the health-conscious Meghan, but I’d love to see her tell that to my great aunt. All ‘sugar-free’ jam recipes use artificial sweeteners anyway, which contain more chemicals than old-fashioned caster.

Use a wooden spoon or potato masher to mash the berries (but not too much: Meghan’s jam will definitely look thick) and let the mixture bubble for an hour, stirring occasionally.

Then remove the pan from the heat and add 125 ml of liquid pectin, a fruit-based fiber that thickens the jam, followed by two tablespoons of lemon juice. Stir continuously for a few more minutes.

And that’s it. I sterilize my jars with boiling water, divide the jam between them, cover with foil and leave in a warm place for 48 hours, before covering each one with a disc of wax paper (this keeps the seal airtight) and screwing the lids on tightly . Total cost of my jam making efforts? Only €4 per pot – and that is mainly due to the astronomical costs of buying strawberries in April.

But my rustic pots don’t quite resemble Meghan’s yet. First, I use her company website – which is empty save for a sign-up box to subscribe to the ‘waiting list’ – to borrow her wavy gold logo and branding.

Then it’s up to my dodgy skills with Photoshop and Microsoft Paint to turn it into a label, finished with my finest calligraphy in black ink to number the jars.

I cover each with a circle of muslin, tied with a cream ribbon, and stick the labels with my sons’ Pritt stick, which seems appropriate as Meghan’s are peeling at the edges.

Finally, for the much-derided display basket, I pick an old stone planter from my shed (you can buy one from TK Maxx for £9.99) and fill it with shredded paper, leaf litter from the garden and six of the largest lemons I have. have. can I get (45p each) on the local market.

This all adds up to an extra £12.69, bringing my version of Meghan’s chic jam presentation to £16.69 – 12 times cheaper than the price tag for a single jar of honey that her jam was compared to.

And while it may look good, it all comes down to taste. I can’t vouch for the Montecito variety, but my jam is sweet, summery, and quite spectacular on toast.

It may not have the royal seal of approval, but neither does Meghan’s.