Three gallons of red raspberries had to be dealt with after the massive harvest on Saturday! However, jam making only took an hour, thanks to Mr. Caffeinated, who ran them all through the juicer to take the seeds out for me on Saturday afternoon.
Since I hate scrolling through reams of verbiage for recipes, I'll post it here for those who prefer to cut to the chase:
3 c. raspberry puree
2. c. sugar
2 3/4 T. lemon juice
3 1/2 T. reduced sugar pectin
Blend for 5 minutes. I used speed 7 on my Vitamix.
Pour into freezer-safe jars, allowing 1/2" headspace. Lid, label, and freeze.
Back to my tale.
Three gallons of raspberries resulted in a bit shy of a gallon of seedless raspberry puree. Call it 3/4 of a gallon.
After a brief math session with the instructions on the pectin container, a pencil, and the back of an insurance letter (to figure out my recipe proportions, since I don't think I've ever made jam with the piddly little amounts that they use in their recipes)… and I was in business.
I cheat; I make my freezer jam in the blender. It's just easier on the elbows than all that stirring they recommend on the pectin package. All the ingredients go in:
Blend for five minutes…
… measure out the sugar, pectin and lemon juice for ye next batch while the first one's going…
… and taste-test the first batch to see how it turned out.
Jam-making tends to attract quality control volunteers. After the initial taste of jam on a spoon, this one asked for a bowl of it.
He then proceeded to dump it all on a piece of toast, announced that it "looked like blood, Mom!", and insisted on a gory death-blow-to-the-toast photo before inhaling it like he was starving.
Thus assured that the current formula was acceptable to the natives, I proceeded to pour it into jars for the freezer. You'd think, given the volume, I'd use larger jars… but when you have boys that will eat an entire jar of jam on French toast or waffles in one sitting, regardless of the size of the jar, then one eventually wises up and starts making the jam go farther by using smaller jars.
I made three batches (the last was nearly a double), and ended up with 20 jars of jam. They average a cup apiece, so three gallons of raspberries made roughly one gallon and a quart of freezer jam.
Not bad for the first big picking of the season!
No comments:
Post a Comment