Ian and I went to a local farm today and picked up a flat of raspberries so I could make some jam. I've made a few batches but raspberry is mine and Ian's favorite.
A few things to pick up that will make your life easier:Funnel
Pair of jar tongs (for picking up the hot jar)
Magnetic lid wand (for picking up the hot lids out of the pot)
Ingredients:
6 cups of crushed raspberries (you can use frozen if you like, just thaw them first)
4 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
1 box of Certo Light Pectin Crystals
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees F. Wash your jam jars with hot soapy water, rinse them and then I put them into a cake pan and put them in the oven. To sterilize the jars make sure they're in the over for at least 10 mins., I just keep them in until I'm ready to fill them.
2. Crush berries one layer at a time with a potato masher. To make clean up easier I line a cookie tray with tin foil and crush the berries on that. If you aren't a fan of lots of seeds or pulp you can you a sieve to remove some. I just kept all the pulp and seed!
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3. In a large pot stir together crushed raspberries with the Certo and 1/4 cup of the measured sugar.
4. Bring to a boil over high heat.
5. Add the rest of the sugar and return to a hard boil for 1 min. Bringing it to a hard boil seems to take a while. I'm always a bit afraid of burning the fruit on the bottom so usually put the burner on high until it starts to bubble a bit then stir and do the same until eventually it turns into a hard boil. You can usually tell it's been cooked enough if it gets foamy.
6. Remove the pot from the heat and stir and skim the foam of the top of the berries. The foam isn't bad, it just doesn't look as "pretty" and when it solidifies a bit there's air in it so it's not really like jam. I skimmed the top but saved the foam and used it as a desert topping on ice cream!
7. Use a ladle and pour the hot jam into sterilized jars about 1/4 inch from the rim. Cover with the warm lid and screw the rings on tight. With the jar tongs, put the jars into a large pot of boiling water (make sure the water covers the top of the jars by at least an inch) and let them sit in that for at least 5 minutes. Then remove the jars from the pot and I place them on a clean towel on the counter. When the jars begin to cool you'll hear the popping noise of the lids sealing.
Lessons Learned:
The one utensil I would buy if I were to only choose one, is the jar tongs. I make my first batch without and it was very difficult to get the jars out of boiling water with out them! Also the funnel I got is one that kind of folds in on itself to make it a long or short funnel. I would highly recommend one of these versus a standard funnel, it's great for storage and it works well for both tall and short jars.
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| This is actually from the batch of raspberry mango jam I made |
The other thing, if you're going to go to the trouble of making your own jam, buy local. I did it because I wanted to support local farms, and I thought they would taste better. The local berries really do taste better! It may cost a bit more, but totally worth it!
This batch turned out pretty good. So far I've made strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, strawberry balsamic black pepper (great with goat cheese!), and raspberry mango jam. I've only ever made jam using certo light because it uses less sugar than the original. I want to make a jelly at some point with no sugar because we have a couple of diabetics in the family but that will be another day.
