Jam Session

Jam session... get it??!!

Anyway...

My momma came over today so I forced her to help me make jam out of all those berries I picked before it was too late to do anything at all.  I did put some of the black raspberries aside for yogurt and things (I haven't made any yet but I hear it is easy) and I saved some of the red currants to dehydrate, scones maybe.

I found a recipe for red currant jam online and made a few changes to it for the black raspberries.  From what I can tell this recipe can be used to make pretty much any type of berry jam.

Here goes,
8 cups currants
1/2 cup H2O
4 1/2 cups sugar

Other helpful things
Jars
Jar tongs
Jar funnel

(I was able to get all three of those things at the ace hardware by my house although you don't need the funnel if you can pour well and and tongs are super helpful but regular tongs do, technically, get the job done)

Because the black raspberries aren't quite as tart as currants nor as juicy I cut down on the sugar by 1/2 a cup and did 3/4 a cup water.  In retrospect though I maybe could have cut down on the sugar a little bit more, it turned out fairly sweet.

So first rinse your berries (duh, right?) then throw them in a pot with the water and bring to a boil.

thems berries got the jazz boil!

Now that they are boiling and your berries are soft you are going to reduce the heat and mash those berries up.  A potato masher works right good but I used my non-electric hand mixer (an electric mixer would probably work, I only wish I had one).

I also hear a food processor works quite well if you want a super smooooth jam, I prefer the chunkier kind myself.  Now leave it on the stove to simmer, stirring frequently.  The recipe I had said to let it simmer for 20 minutes although I found I had to go a little more than that for the currants and quite a bit longer for the raspberries.

While your jam is simmering it makes for a good opportunity to sanitize your jars.  You can either hand wash and rinse well, put them through the dish washer or boil them.

After about 20 minutes you can start checking the viscosity of your concoction.  Now there are two ways to do this.  The method I have been using is the spoon test.  You dip your spoon in and when you pull it out you want it to really stick to the spoon.

Those droplets on the spoon were really slow moving and as they started to cool they stopped dripping entirely and just stuck there.  The other method you can use is a plate test.  Put a spoon full on a plate and stick it in the freezer just long enough to get to room temperature.  When you hold the plate sideways it should stick to the plate like, well, jelly would. 

So now you want to pour your super hot liquid jam into it's new jar homes.  Just a heads up, for the full recipe with the black raspberries I was able to fill 48oz worth of jars and the 1/2 recipe with the currants I got 24oz (side note, if you puree the berries you may get a little less than this).  Once your jars are full make sure you wipe the rims down really well then put the lids on, hand tightening them.  Now they go in a boiling water bath.  What this does is kill all of the bacteria and micro-organisms that may exist in there.  They only need to be submerged in the boiling water for about ten minutes but for you Denverites reading this you may want to do it for 20 or so seeing as how water boils at a lower temperature up here.  Use those jar tongs to get them out of the hot water and set them on the counter.  You are going to want to test the seals now, you can just push down on the lid if it clicky-clackies it didn't seal all the way, that's okay though just make sure you refrigerate them and use within two months.

YAY!  We did it!

"Wait Judy", you may be saying "I see the black raspberry on the right and the red currant on the left, but do tell WHAT is that in the middle?"

Well on Sara's suggestion I made a syrup with the pie cherries.  It was so easy, I did equal parts honey and water (a cup of each) and about two cups cherries.  I boiled everything for about ten minutes and then processed them in the same hot-water bath as the jams.  At my moms (Gwen) suggestion we did a few.  One has sage in it, one has rosemary (she was thinking pork chops) and one has mint.

The next time we make jam - jalapeno peach and strawberry!

Now go be free sweet things!