cherry jam

Cherries were very reasonably priced at the grocery store leading me to buy an extra five pounds to make cherry jam.  I like making my own jam because then I know exactly what's in it.  And I manage to avoid all of the nasty ingredients that I do not want in my pantry, HFCS, artificial flavors, artificial colors, etc.  that I complained about in a recent post on grape jelly.

Jam is very easy to make.  I've taught a lot of people how to make it and invariably the response is, "That's it?"  Yes.  That's really it.  It's not that hard, it just seems complicated because most of us don't can food anymore.  Honestly I don't even make that much these days.  Now that the kids are older and most of them out of the house we just don't go through jelly, jam, chutneys, and pickles the way we used to.  So I tend to save my efforts for the more expensive items.  Like cherries.

After washing and draining the cherries comes the task of pitting them.  Without fail every single time I make cherry jam I wonder why the heck I have never invested in a cherry pitter.

I need one because, first it takes a doggone long time to pit five pounds of cherries.  Second if you've ever tried to get cherry juice out of a white blouse you'll appreciate that my fingernails look none too clean for at least a day or two afterwards.

Another challenge is trying to pit the cherries without attracting the attention of other people in the house.  Invariably five pounds of cherries turns into a fair amount less after certain unnamed people start eating them faster than you can pit them.

To make the jam simply combine the cherries with lemon peel, lemon juice, sugar, and pectin and let it cook for a while on the stovetop until it thickens.  There are lots of great recipes for cherry jam out there.  The one I use comes from the Ball Blue Book which is a great resource for recipes and information on preserving all kinds of things.

My other favorite canning/preserving book are:

• Preserving the Harvest by Carol Costenbader
• Preserving Memories by Judy Glattstein (and not just because she's my mom, it really is a great book)
• Stocking Up by Carol Hupping

Once you've created jam you put it into sterilized jars, hot water bath it and then you're done.  One of my favorite sounds is the little plinking noises made by the lids sealing after their hot water bath.

The jars will keep for up to two years in the pantry.  Each time we take one out and eat it we are reminded of the sweet, juicy taste of summer.  Believe me, in the middle of winter the hot, steam-filled kitchen and huge pots a-boiling on the stove are a far distant memory.  It's all worth it.

gotta get grapes

Concord Grapes | photo: grongar

Warning....rant ahead.  I'm so aggravated I cannot even tell you.  This morning I went to the grocery store for a few items.  One of them was grape jelly, requested by my daughter.  It's her favorite flavor.  Since we've moved away from Connecticut we no longer have the same access to wild grapes so I'm no longer making grape jelly.  The grapes that I've managed to find here in Texas have, for the last two years, been very thick skinned and dry due to the lack of rain so no grapes there either.  I did plant grapes in my garden but they're table grapes not jelly grapes so I'm not sure they'd work well.

My frustration?  NOT ONE SINGLE jar of grape jelly at the grocery store came without HFCS.  Several even had HFCS as the number one ingredient.  Seriously?  That number one ingredient means that the majority of the jelly isn't even grapes, it's HFCS.  That is insane.  First of all grape jelly is incredible easy to make.  Grapes are very high in pectin.  Throw them together with a little water, the right amount of sugar, heat to the correct temperature and voila! Grape jelly.  Even more upsetting to me is the fact that many of the grape jellies at the grocery store come with artificial flavorings.  I'm not exactly sure why as to my mind grapes have a pretty distinctive taste all their own.

Needless to say I did not buy any grape jelly (luckily she also likes orange marmalade so that's what she got) and I'm going to have to work a little harder to find a good source of either muscadines or concord grapes to start making my own jelly again.

For those who have access to good grapes for jelly making here's a great recipe from the book Preserving Memories: Growing Up in My Mother's Kitchen.  In the interest of full disclosure I'll tell you that this book was written by my mom.  I'm not recommending it because she wrote it (honestly).  It really is one of my favorite canning/preserving books and my first go-to when I'm looking to make something.    To get all of the great commentary, hints and tips you'll have to get the book, but here's the recipe:



Grape Jelly

10 C. or more Concord grapes (approximately 8 lbs.)
1 apple (optional)
2 C. water
Sugar

1. Wash the Concord grapes.
2. Cut the apple into quarters -- peel, core, and all -- then chop coarsely.  Set aside.
3. Put a couple of cups of grapes int a large stainless-steel pot, then crush them with a potato masher of the bottom of a clean glass jar.  this provides a small amount of juice and prevents scorching.
4. Add the water.
5. Add the cut-up apple.
6. Heat the fruit mixture slowly to the boiling point, reduce the heat, and simmer until the seeds come free from the pulp.
7. Line a large colander with several layers of damp cotton cheesecloth.  Set the colander over a large pot or bowl and carefully pour the grapes and liquid into it.  Allow the free-run juice to drip through the cheesecloth.  You may also use a chinois or jelly bag.  Do not press down on the fruit.
8. Measure the free-run juice.  Process into jelly 4 cups of juice at a time - a smaller batch means the jell point is reached more quickly, resulting in better flavor.
9. Taste a little bit of the juice.  For every 1 cup of reasonably sweet grape juice, measure out 2/3 cup of sugar.  If you used a greater percentage of under-ripe grapes and the juice is on the tart side, you can use 3 or 3 1/2 cups of sugar to 4 cups of juice.
10. Bring juice to a boil then add the sugar.  Boil to the jell point.
11. Fill and process prepared jars.

making homemade jam

Josh wrote in and wondered, "We just made some strawberry jam. Best jelly I've ever had. Do you know if you have to use such a huge amount of sugar? The basic recipe we used was adamant not to adjust or the jam would not set properly."


Strawberries are very low in pectin so you do need to add a fair amount of sugar to get them to set. If you use less sugar they will not set. You can try using some strawberries that are not fully ripe and still have the white tips but I have had hit-or-miss success with this method.


One way to vary the amount of sugar, especially if you are not using pectin, is to mix the strawberries with a higher pectin fruit such as apples, blackberries, crab apples, cranberries, gooseberries, grapes, or citrus peel.  This works for any low pectin fruit such as apricots, blueberries, peaches, pears, rhubarb, and raspberries.


If you are willing to use pectin you can use a commercial variety, and there are some low sugar ones out there, but another option is to make your own homemade pectin using apples or lemons. There are excellent directions in the book "Preserving Memories" by Judy Glattstein (who I confess is my mother and an excellent canner).


There are recipes that talk about using honey or other sweeteners but I find that most of them call for gelatin which I prefer not to use.