I made Strawberry Jam!

[KimKelly]

I'm so excited! We just got back from a fun week with some friends near Yosemite. Coming from San Diego I brought some locally grown fresh, beautiful strawberries. I brought so much that we couldn't eat them all and she suggested that we make jam. We did, and it was wonderful! Here's the recipe:

Small-Batch Fresh Strawberry Jam

From Bread for Breakfast, by Beth Hensperger, p. 151

Makes about 2 cups

3 pint baskets fresh ripe strawberries, washed, drained and hulled (about 4 1/2 cups)
1 (1 3/4 or 2 oz.) box powdered pectin (use the type designed for low amounts of sugar)
1 Tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 to 1 cup sugar or to taste


1. Place the berries in a large bowl and coarsely crush them with a potato masher, leaving lots of whole or semi-whole berries. Place in a deep, heavy, nonreactive saucepan. Sprinkle with the pectin. Let stand 10 minutes.

2. Add the lemon juice and sugar and simmer over low heat until the sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a full boil. Cook, skimming off the white foam with a large metal spoon, for aobut 15 minutes, or until it has thickened and a spoonful begins to gel when dropped onto a plate that has been chilled for 10 minutes in the freezer. Spoon into storage jars and let stand until cool. Sotre, covered tightly, in the referigerator for up to 2 months (if it lasts that long!).

We all sure enjoyed this, hope you do too.

Now that I'm on a roll... anyone else have any wonderful jam recipes out there???

Kim

[slknight]

It sounds wonderful. To have that many fresh strawberries this time of year... The strawberries here are very expensive, and very poor quality.

Sorry I don't have any jam recipes for you. I've never gotten up the nerve to make it. Maybe I'll give it a try this summer. It sounds delicious.

[Beth]

Kim, careful. That's how we started, except it was an October trip to Carmel by the Sea. I had left over jars and got the recipe for dilled green beans from a friend. Then we started checking out more recipes and wound up canning over 200 jars of "stuff" in the coming year.

[beejayw1]

Originally posted by KimKelly
Spoon into storage jars and let stand until cool. Sotre, covered tightly, in the referigerator for up to 2 months (if it lasts that long!).

Hey, Kim -

Now, if you don't want to store the jam in the fridge, you can take sterilized jars with two-piece lids (boil them, or else put through the dishwasher on the heated dry cycle and don't take them out till you need them). You must have two-piece lids for this, though.

Anyhow, fill the jars with the hot jam, cap loosely, cover with water, and boil for 10 minutes. This vacuum seals the jar lids (which you then tighten) and the jams will keep for at least a year.

If you want any clarification, let me know.

Now, jam recipes... Let me see what I can find. Ginger-peach butter? Apple butter? Plum jam? Brandied lemon marmalade? Hmmm.......

[Gina O]

Diana-

I would love the brandied lemon marmalade when you have a chance. It sounds absolutely delicious!

My specialty is peach jam. It is not super thick (more spoonable then spreadable), but very tasty on toast or pancakes. I promised to teach a friend to make strawberry jam this spring, that will be lots of fun. Gina

[beejayw1]

The peach jam sounds luscious!

As for the marmalade, I am about to divulge a 'secret' (see the thread on that):

Well, you can do it two ways, and I recommend the second way:

Traditional
Take sixteen lemons; cut each fruit in quarters and slice the quarters through pulp and rind as thin as possible, discarding all seeds.

Weigh the prepared fruit, and to each pound add two pints of cold water and one pint of cheap brandy (don't waste the expensive stuff on jams!). Let it sit, covered, for twenty-four hours.

Let boil gently until the rind is perfectly tender, then set aside, covered, until the next day.

Weigh the pulp and add one pound of sugar to each pound of pulp.

Let cook until it thickens slightly on a cold dish. The mixture will thicken still more on cooling and care must be taken not to cook it too much. Stir occasionally, while cooking, to avoid burning.

Process in hot water.

The New Way
Go to a Williams-Sonoma store, or look through their catalog, and buy a can of Ma Made thick-cut lemon for marmalade. This is a British product. The lemons (or oranges) are seeded and cut up and put in with pectin. You add sugar and liquid and boil for about 20 minutes, then process as you would jam.

I've made marmalade both ways, and I have to say that not having to cut up a ton of citrus fruits, invariably nicking myself and getting citric acid in the cut, dancing around the kitchen with my finger in my mouth and swearing around it, is well worth the approximately $7 that a large can of this stuff costs. It makes about 6 one-pint jars.

If you do this, then here's how you make the brandied marmalade:

Open the can.
Pour into a pan.
Add the 4 lbs of sugar required.
Measure the required liquid, but substitute half brandy.

Bring to a boil, as directed, and allow to cook for about 20 minutes (no longer; the pectin makes it a no-fail jell situation).

You can also substitute a grand-marnier or orange Curacao-type liqueur; either way is delicious.

The thing about jam-making is that it is so simple, using fresh fruits, that once it's done, you wonder why it took you so long to start doing it. In fall I make a no-boil apple butter that is wonderful (you bake it; you don't have to worry about toddlers pulling a pot of boiling fruit and sugar down on their heads), and I make peach butter and jam, and plum jam.

[KimKelly]

Originally posted by Beth
Kim, careful. That's how we started, except it was an October trip to Carmel by the Sea. I had left over jars and got the recipe for dilled green beans from a friend. Then we started checking out more recipes and wound up canning over 200 jars of "stuff" in the coming year.


Ahhhhh Beth! That is exactly what I fear will happen! My husband just laughed and shook his head when he saw how excited I was that my jam worked so well.

And Beejay - actually your method is what we did. My friend is a big "canner" and showed me what to do . I now have 4 beautiful jars of strawberry jam sitting on my counter! Maybe I'll put them away today, or maybe we'll look at them for a while more......

Thanks you guys!
Kim

[Gina O]

Diana-

Thanks for the recipes/methods! I may wind up trying both eventually. I have a ridiculously expensive mandoline that seems especially suited for slicing fruit, this would be a good use for it. Gina

[Beth]

The traditional marmalade takes some time, but most of it the first day in preparing the fruit, then just letting it sit. It sure is good. I made 3 fruit and red grapefruit marmalades the last time we did it. This would be a great time to do marmalades while citrus is so good.

I haven't posted any recipes cuz I have several books. To be honest, my favorites are mostly the straight fruit ones. Let me know if you are looking for a certain typ of recipe and I'll see if I have one for you.