Homemade Jam

Have you ever made it before? Who has a good recipe? Strawberries are coming into season and I want to make some!

Re: Homemade Jam

I've made it, it's not difficult.

I buy a gelling agent from Germany that lets me use half as much sugar than the traditional recipes, without using any kind of artificial sweetener.
My mom was a diabetic.

The standard recipe is basically berries, sugar and a little lemon juice or citric acid and pectin.

Re: Homemade Jam

I make jam all the time- blueberry, strawberry, fig.. it is super easy- and with a hot water bath the jam lasts for a year: this is from my blog:

6 cups strawberries (I hulled them and sliced the big ones in half)

2 cups sugar (you need this much sugar as a preservative)

1/3 cup lemon juice (a little zest would be nice as well- I plan to add some next year)



Put two saucers in the freezer (will explain later). Put strawberries in a pot and mash with a potato masher (I left some chunky pieces in there). Bring strawberry mush to a simmer and add sugar & lemon juice. Continue to simmer, stirring constantly, for about 10-15 minutes until desired consistency is reached (take the saucer out of freezer, put a teaspoon of jam on it, and see if when nudged the surface wrinkles after about 1 minute or 2).



At this point you are ready to can (or you can just put the jam in the fridge and eat it over the next 2 weeks). If you want to can, you should put the hot jam in hot jars (otherwise you run the risk of the jars breaking). Process the jars in a water bath, covered, for 10 minutes at sea level (which is where I live, if you live in the mountains, just google your processing time for jam).



I think the recipe above pretty much works for any berry or any berry combo (blackberry, raspberry, etc)…. good luck!