I love homemade jam. I don’t love making jam, but I love homemade jam. Each summer I make some, and the best I ever made was the best because it had the dreamiest ingredients – white peaches, ripe to perfection, with some shiny red raspberries added in. There is no one who had a taste that doesn’t remember that jam. So every year, in spite of the fact that making jam is quite a project, I do it again.
This year I decided to make notes, after Mika reminded me that using a paper clip is the way I made the cherry jam last year. But I think last year’s cherry jam was sour cherry jam, and this year it is Bing cherry jam. I found the easiest way was to just use my fingers. They worked just fine, and was the fastest method. Faster than paper clips.
Get the big pot out and fill it with water for sterilizing the jars and then for the water bath to sterilize them for 10 minutes afterwards. It is smart to get the pot up first, and fill it, boil it, put the jars in to sterilize while you are making jam. It doesn’t matter how long they are in there – 10 minutes or an hour. BUT, when the jam is done, let it sit while you get all the jars out, and have dunked the lids into the not-boiling-anymore water to kill any germs. The instructions for the jelly jars said you should not use boiling water to wash the lids. Then start the water boiling right away so it is boiling when you need to do the water bath for the final product. Today I forgot, and now I am waiting for the water to boil. The highest line in the pot is the correct place to fill it to – it works perfectly there for 4-6 jam jars.
A few reminders: gelling point for jelly is 220 at sea level. Mika has a small thermometer, which I think might be used for meat, but it goes up to 220, so I used that. It had to boil for a long time before it got to 220. The biggest problem is that I left the room, and when I came back the jelly was all over the stove. It took Peter some real arm exercise level of muscle to clean it out of the pan with steel wool. I made a resolution to never leave the room when making jam ever again.
It takes about 6 cups of cherries halved to make 4 cups of cherries to turn into jam. Pit the cherries, put them in a pan, this time I added an apple to add pectin to the jam… then cook it until it is juicy. Then measure. If you have 4 cups, you need to add 3 cups of sugar. I used organic cane sugar from Whole Foods.
Another tip is that if you stir the cherry jelly it is likely to suddenly spit up all over the stove because the bottom is hotter than the top and that steamy mess will explode when the steam is released. Stir it fairly often so this doesn’t happen. Also because it will settle down and burn at the bottom of the pan. This happened to the blueberry jam too. Never leave the kitchen when you are making jam. Bring the computer in and sit there with it making notes or whatever. Do not leave the jam’s side!
The blueberry jam gelled well, but the cherry jam seems to still be sloppy, even though it hit 220. Soft gel. I think last year’s cherry jam was the same – it just doesn’t have enough pectin in it to become dense jam, even though I added lemon to it, and an apple, grated. Oh well.
There is a long metal barbeque poker thing which you can put across the jar wire rack and the smaller jars will not fall in if it is there. I put two jars of jam where the poker thing was, and another jar in the middle, which doesn’t have big enough holes to let the jar squeeze out. Works well.
Mika went blueberry picking with L and Z and Mantha the Hopper, and brought back something like 6 pounds of blueberries. So I had a challenge to make blueberry jam. The first jam I made had the zest of two limes and 1/4 cup lime juice. The taste was great. But this time I want to try a cinnamon spice version. Will have to add pectin…