Canned! What To Do When You Have An Overabundance of Produce: Strawberry Jam (Part 2)
Thank you for joining me for a continuation of our canning adventure!
Edit: I forgot to mention the pectin! It's now included in the description.
Jam is the perfect was to preserve your summer fruits at peak ripeness and flavor. Just about nothing beats the sweet taste of fruit jam on a fresh buttermilk biscuit (or a plain scone for friends living outside of the USA).
There are so many types of jam... Peach jam, pepper jam, orange jam (marmalade), Space Jam...
But today we made STRAWBERRY jam.
We used a mix of strawberries from our garden and from the store since we wouldn't have enough otherwise.
I'm going to skip over the preparation steps for canning. If you'd like a more in depth explanation for how to prepare the canning process, please check out Part 1 of this series here!
Washing and topping the strawberries: the most time consuming part!
We cut them up into smaller bits and mushed them together with a bit of sugar to draw out water and give it an aqueous texture, so that this....
... Becomes this.
We threw the stockpot on the stove and added more sugar. Y'know, for good measure.
Add this stuff: pectin gives it that delectably spreadable texture.
Stir it all together while it simmers to dissolve all the sugar.
And it'll look like this! Yummy, like melted candy. Be careful not to touch melted sugar because it can be VERY hot.
The most challenging part is carefully pouring the hot strawberry liquid into jam jars:
We then sealed them in the pressure canner for about 25 minutes and let them cool until they popped. I made a loaf of fresh bread that will complement the flavor pleasantly!
I can't wait to try it - I'll keep you guys updated with tomorrow's breakfast!
I think I'll post more canning and pickling endeavors under the same series title and maybe I'll have a nice collection after a while!
Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed. Let me know what you think in a comment below.
Cheers!
Hot boiling sugar is the hottest substance in planet earth... hotter than lava. Ask me how I know. I love canning jam. We just got an all American canner and now have canned spaghetti sauce and chicken broth. We got one exploded sauce bottle in the canner and one broth didn't seal. But we're learning!
It's basically an extraterrestrial plasma. That's so awesome! I haven't tried canning broth yet; we'll definitely have to try it once Thanksgiving rolls around... just slaughtered our GIANT turkey and I'll be using those bones to make some tasty broth. Canning is such a useful skill, plus it's enjoyable to develop!
My Hubby just joined steemit. @TXBogey
You made this process look so easy! Space jam is a good kind of jam. 😊
I'm glad you think so! Space jam tastes like the 90s~
what a fantastic movie! Good childhood memories associated with that time in my life. Thanks for the reminder :)
I love to can as well down here in Australia and have bought all the jars and canners online at a huge price but now I can get on with canning, bottling as we say down here. Enjoy the fruits of your labour as it looks wonderful. following
Bottles are made of glass but cans are made from metals, so y'all have much more accurate terminology than we do! LOL. Preparation is the most expensive part of the process but once you have the jars you'll be set for life; you just have to buy new lids every time you can but they're not that pricey~ Thank you so much for the comment and follow~
Nice article and very helpful.
Thank you, I'm very glad you found it valuable!