We recently had a jam making party with our neighbor Steven. It took all afternoon, well, all of a Sunday pretty much, to make the jam, but it was so fun! There has been amazing strawberries and blueberries at the farmer's market lately, so we went Sunday morning and stocked up on tons of organic berries.
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| The Awesome Preserve Book! |
I have to admit, I'm not very good at following recipes. I always look up recipes and keep them nearby, but as we realized just how much fruit we had purchased, the less inclined we were to follow the outlined steps. I have a great book on canning and preserving that my mom sent me (the Sunset Canning and Preserving Book). After flipping through a bunch of the jam recipes, I realized they are all roughly the same: fruit, sugar, and maybe pectin. Some recipes call for more sugar, less pectin, but it's all roughly the same. So we figured, why not wing it.
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| Stirring the brew. |
With that, we just started mashing combinations of berries and sugar in bowls. We ended up with 5 variations total. Once we had our mash ready, we put it on the stove to boil and added pectin. I think we left them all for about 20 to 30 minutes at a slow boil, and when the mix seemed to be thickening up we did the cold plate gel test. Steven put a few small plates in the freezer, and every so often, we would put a spoonful of jam on the plate. Then it went back in the freezer for a minute or so, and if it didn't run back together when we put our finger in it then it was done.
All that was left was to fill the jars and seal them. We filled quite a few jars with Strawberry Cinnamon, Old Fashioned Strawberry, Strawberry Blackberry, Strawberry Cherry, and Blueberry Cinnamon. So yummy!
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2 comments:
What a great day. I have already gone through two jars of jam. I can't wait till we jam again!
It was a great day! After our trip we should have another preserving party. Cucumbers are starting to appear at the farmers market, and Derick and I want to buy a case and do some crazy pickling!
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