I’ll be honest, there’s not a ton to say here. This is the second of the three jam recipes Bill and I made the other day (before our trip to New Mexico). The third recipe will be posted too, but (sadly) it doesn’t count against our total. It didn’t come from a cookbook.
Anyway, my goal here was to make raspberry jam for Bill (not “raspberry ham”, as I originally typed). I am really not a big fan of raspberries, generally, but he is. Since we’re getting to a stage in our life where it’s unlikely we’ll ever buy jam again, I wanted to make sure he didn’t miss out on his favorite jam. Corrine had already helped with this some, by leaving a couple of jars of raspberry jam for him on her way home from the Great Frozen North, but those two jars will go quickly.
Unfortunately, I had misjudged the amount of raspberries I needed, and didn’t have enough for a straight raspberry jam. So I threw in some blackberries to make up the difference. Bill likes it quite a bit, so basically a win. It also made COPIOUS amounts of jam.h2. Ingredients
4 c crushed berries
6.5 c granulated sugar
1 pouch LIQUID pectin
h2. Instructions
Prepare canner, jars & lids.
In a very large saucepan, combine berry pulp and sugar over high heat. Stir constantly, and bring to a full rolling boil. At this point, stir in the liquid pectin, then boil hard for one minute. Keep stirring during this minute. Really, just plan to do a bunch of stirring. After one minute, remove from heat and skim off the foam.
Ladle hot jam into warmed jars, leaving 0.25″ headspace. Remove any air bubbles, then adjust headspace as needed. Wipe down the rims & threads. Put the lid on, then screw on a band to fingertip tight.
Place jars in canner and boil for 10 minutes (at sea level; don’t start the timer until the canner is boiling again). After 10 minutes, turn off the heat1, remove the canner lid and let cool for five minutes before removing jars to a towel or wooden cutting board on the counter. Allow to cool and store.
h2. Cooking and Consumption Notes
h3. Cooking
Something I should note about the crushed berries; the measurement is a liquid measure, not a dry measure.
Frankly, making jam is still a busy process. Not much changed there. In fact, it’s such a busy process, and this entry is so similar to the last one if I type it all out, that I think I’ll have Bill type up the final jam recipe. It’d be interesting to get his persepective on the process he got dragooned into.
I will say that this recipe actually calls for half the raspberries to be seeded. Bill thinks this is utter tomfoolery. He likes the seeds, apparently. So, as you can imagine, I did not bother.
h3. Consumption
I don’t think I’ve eaten this, except that I licked the skimming spoon. I have no recollection of what it tastes like. Berry-y, probably.
Bill really liked it, so I’m going to call it a win (and not give away any more of the jars of it, so he has something raspberry-like).
We gave a jar to Bill’s friend D. He also liked it, and said the combo is “a classic”. (Ha! You didn’t know you’d be quoted, did you, D.?)
fn1. I’m not sure how much cooling happens on an electric stove, but I’m also not super sure it matters. I do know that I would in no way recommend trying to remove a full canner of boiling water and hot glass and jam from a burner. Just let it cool at whatever speed it cools at. The book says this is more about pressure stabilization than cooling anyway, so don’t fret about heat.