When Life Gives You..........

.........black raspberries, make jam!  Sunday our oldest son brought home a bag of fresh picked black raspberries, just enough to make jam.

So yesterday morning I took out the pot and set out the ingredients........berries, sugar, pectin.  I filled up the canner, put the jars in the dishwasher to rewash and heat up and got to it!

Most important when making jam, the measurements should be exact (or very, very close) or the jam will not "set" and you will have sauce instead.  After washing the berries, I crushed them with my potato masher and put them on to boil with the packet of pectin.  It needed to be a "full rolling boil" .........

Then I added the sugar and stirred constantly letting it come back to a boil, once at the boil I set the timer for one minute, then voila you are ready for the next step...............

Into the hot jars (from the dishwasher or you could run them upside down under very hot water), the jars need to be hot so they won't crack from the hot jam you will put inside them.  Ladle the cooked jam (it will be liquid at this point) into the jars, wipe the rim, place the lid and band, then they are ready for a "bath" in the canner.  While I was making the jam I had my water bath canner on to heat so it would be ready for the jars, I usually bring it to a boil and then back to another boil after adding the jars and set the timer for 10 minutes according to the directions on the pectin packet.  Here's the finished product.......

As it cools it will "set" and should be the consistency of jam.  Sometimes that doesn't happen and it could be due to a number of different factors, the weather, not measuring the berries or sugar correctly, or not bringing it to the boil.  Remember you can still use it as sauce if it doesn't set and try again!  It's not really difficult to make jam, just takes a little time (not much) and a few supplies.  If you decide to try canning please take a moment to do some research as I left out a few prep steps like boiling the lids before you put them on the jars, etc. (this post was to demonstrate how fairly easy it is to make jam, not as a complete how-to)   Water bath canning is fairly easy, but NOT all things can be water bathed and cleanliness is important when canning.

Last night I finally finished the remaining bags that will be donated to Caring Unlimited........

Hope you have a terrific day, I'm off to research soap making!