Homemade spiced apricot jam

I have never tried to make jam before, but last week my partner's mum brought over a heap of very ripe fresh organic apricots from one of her friends trees and there was just no way we could eat them all before they spoiled. The apricots were just so delicious and juicy, and I couldnt bare to waste them so I decided to make some jam. All I knew was that you put approx. equal amounts of sugar to fruit (my partner's mum gave me this ratio, she makes jam all the time). I googled a few recipes (including some yummy sounding ones on 'Food for Thought' blog) and learnt that apricots don't have much pectin (the setting agent), but citrus fruits apparently do...so I experimented a bit and this was the resulting recipe:

1.75 kg Roughly chopped fresh apricots (discard stones, but don’t bother peeling skin off the apricots.

1.5 kg Sugar (I used 1 kg caster sugar, 0.5 kg brown sugar)

Juice from 1 lemon

Juice from 1 lime

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 teaspoon ginger powder

Put in saucepan and heat, stirring. After quite a while it starts thickening and looking like jam. To check if it really is set, get a china plate, put it in the fridge or freezer for a couple of minutes to chill, take it out and put a spoonful of the hot jam on the cold plate. Leave for a minute or so then run the spoon through the jam. If it goes all wrinkly and looks set then it is ready to bottle! :-)

And it really tastes delicious ;-) (even if i say so myself) I made 7 jars, and gave 4 away to friends and my partner started to get worried that I was giving it all away and there wouldnt be enough left for him hahaha. I'll put some photos up soon.