Jammin’
The strawberries are producing like crazy in our patch
Despite the drought-like conditions that Oklahoma has experienced this year, and in spite of the bitterly cold and snowy winter that attacked the state, the strawberries are showing how truly resilient they really are. We did lose some plants, but the ones that survived have rallied with a gumption. The plants and the berries are really large this year and drippy sweet. The varieties are Cardinal and Ozark . I’ve spent several days making jam and just thought I’d show the process for those who have never done it. I always go straight by the recipe for cooked jams in the Ball fruit pectin box. I like Ball fruit pectin better than SureJell but that’s just my personal preference. Be sure to have your waterbath canner ready, jars washed, sterilized and warm and lids sitting in warm water before you start. The jam goes pretty fast.
Wash, top and quarter 5 – 6 quarts of strawberries. Here, I’ve done enough for two runs of jam
Adding one layer at a time to a large stock pot, not on heat, crush the berries with a potato masher
Continue adding layers of berries and continue pressing
For the Ball recipe, measure the crushed berries into another bowl and return exactly 5 cups of the crushed berries to the stock pot. Add 1/4 cup lemon juice and stir
Gradually stir in fruit pectin and incorporate totally
Add 1/2 tsp butter to reduce foaming
Measure out exactly 7 cups of sugar and have it ready
On high heat, bring the berry mixture to a rolling boil while stirring constantly. When the mixuture reaches the point of boiling where you can’t stir it down, steadily add sugar while continuing to stir
Return to a rolling boil and boil hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat
Immediately ladle jam into prepared jars
Wipe rims of jars to remove any jam drips
Apply hot lids and attach rings.
Place in waterbath of hot water and bring to a boil. Process for 10 minutes. Remove jars from canner and allow to cool.
Ready for toast, English Muffins or Popovers!
Happy Jamming!
MB
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This entry was posted
on Wednesday, May 11th, 2011 at 11:32 am and is filed under A Day In the Life Of An Okie, Canning and Food Processing.
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Printing……
Did mine on Monday! Used Certo liquid, not sure I’d use that again.
I’ve never used Certo. Glad you let us know. I think I’ll stick with my Ball’s Fruit Pectin! 🙂
Carol, I’ve seriously thought about doing a full color picture book! You know – glossy pages. BIG. Hardback. Coffee Table Variety. When I find buried treasure. 🙂
The book is a good idea. You obviously have a talent for the picture taking as well as the cooking! I think the book should have like a scratch and sniff or lick and taste to go with each photo!
There’s always “someday”!! 🙂
BEAUTIFUL! I would like to try this using Pomona’s Universal Pectin, which will gel with no sugar. Guess I should start with Step One: Plant strawberries! Ha ha ha!
Or make a trip to Crest’s!! One of the runs I did was low sugar with Ball’s special Low/No sugar pectin. I’ll be curious to know how the Pomona’s works out!!
Hey, question and help please… I see that Aldi has strawberrys for 1.29 lb this week. That is not too bad, best I have seen this year anyway.. How many pounds would you say your recipe uses? Is there an average lbs. per quart?
Carol, first – glad you are ok and stayed safe in the tornadoes!
Second, when using the Ball brand fruit pectin, it says to use around 5 quarts of strawberries for a recipe. You may have a little left over or you may need to add a few strawberries to get the 5 cups of mashed berries, but I found that 5 quarts was just about right. Hope that helps.
Thanks!
[…] these complimentary colors just bounce off of each other. As you can tell, I love my strawberries. Strawberry Jam will be in the works this afternoon! By the way, does anybody know what kind of plant this is? […]