Here's how I made Meghan's over-the-top jam basket for £16.99! (2024)

Made from strawberries grown in her sun-drenched Californian 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 now, the debut product from American Riviera Orchard, Meghan Markle’s elusive new lifestyle brand, has been making waves on social media.

Jars have been appearing on the Instagram profiles of her nearest and dearest, including comedian Mindy Kaling, polo player Nacho Figueras and actress Abigail Spencer, who trilled ‘This jam is my jam’ — and draped herself over a jar for a fawning al fresco photoshoot. No, not names we would recognise here, but let’s face it, we are not her target audience.

Not that anyone can yet buy a pot. According to batch numbers written on the labels, there are only 50 of the jams in existence. Each one has been lovingly made by Meghan herself, at the £12 million mansion she shares with Prince Harry and their two children in Montecito, Santa Barbara.

For those who didn’t know, actress-turned-duch*ess Meghan, 42, was also a condiment chef, and she claims her green-fingered side is nothing new.

‘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, tied into an upcoming Netflix documentary about her bucolic life.

The Sussexes have certainly got the space for a fruit and veg patch: their nine-bedroom house boasts a sprawling back garden fringed 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 whole lot more — if it’s ever made available to the public.

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

You won’t spot it on the shelves at your local Tesco, either: it’s more likely to be sold somewhere like the exclusive Los Angeles grocer Erewhon Market, where a large bottle of milk will set you back £15.

The jam is the first — and only — product to bear the logo of American Riviera Orchard, which was slated for launch on March 14, but has since gone strangely quiet. Trademarks filed under the brand name show that Meghan is also planning to produce cutlery, cookbooks and more jarred foods, as well as foods including marmalade and jellies.

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

She didn’t share a recipe for jam in the cookery section of her now-defunct pre-Harry lifestyle website, The Tig, nor is there one in Together, the cookbook she supported in 2018 from women whose community was affected by the Grenfell Tower fire.

As luck would have it, however, my family are prolific strawberry jam-makers (and, indeed, jam-eaters). I learned to make jam as a child, following a tried-and-tested method handed down from my Great Aunt May, whose faded, handwritten recipe has become so well-loved in my family that my husband and I gave mini jars of jam as favours at our wedding in 2015.

To start, you’ll need strawberries: 680g is enough to make four medium jars (which means the duch*ess will have needed a whopping 8.5kg for 50).

The climate in rural Suffolk, where I live, is somewhat different to the balmy 22C (72F) highs of Montecito, so spring strawberries are few and far between — but I manage to track down a few punnets of locally-grown ones at my neighbourhood deli for £3.50 a pop. I start by hulling them (removing the green tops), halving them and putting them in a pan over a very gentle heat with 800g caster sugar.

Now this might seem like a lot of sugar for health-conscious Meghan, but I’d like to see her tell that to my Great Aunt. All ‘sugar-free’ jam recipes use artificial sweeteners, anyway, which are more chemical-ridden than old-fashioned caster.

Use a wooden spoon or potato masher to crush the berries (not too much, though: Meghan’s jam looks decidedly chunky) and let the mixture bubble away for an hour, stirring occasionally.

Then take the pan off the heat and add 125ml liquid pectin, a fruit-based fibre that thickens the jam, followed by two tablespoons of lemon juice. Stir continuously for another few minutes.

And that’s it. I sterilise my jars with boiling water, divide the jam between them, cover with foil and leave them in a warm place for 48 hours, before topping each with a wax paper disc (this keeps the seal airtight) and screwing the lids on tight. Total cost of my jam-making endeavours? Just £4 a jar — and that’s mostly because of the astronomical cost of buying strawberries in April.

But my rustic jars don’t look quite like Meghan’s just yet. First, I use her company website — which is blank, apart from a sign-up box to subscribe to the ‘waitlist’ — to borrow her swirly gold logo and branding.

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

I top each one with a circle of muslin cloth, tied with a cream ribbon, and stick the labels using my sons’ Pritt stick, which seems appropriate, given Meghan’s were unpeeling at the edges.

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

All this comes to an extra £12.69, taking my version of Meghan’s posh jam presentation to £16.69 — 12 times cheaper than the price tag for a single jar of the honey her jam has been compared to.

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

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