I’ve been on a blueberry kick the past few weeks. Blame it on the farmer’s markets, but I suddenly want to take advantage of the fact that everywhere you turn there are fresh, sweet, blueberries waiting to be baked/cooked/jammed. Last Sunday, I made the blueberry pie that beats all other blueberry pies, and then, inspired by my friend Sarah’s most recent post, tried my hand at making jam. It was really, really easy, yielded a TON of jam (see: for the rest of ever), and is delicious! Brian helped himself to five (yes, five) slices of toast this morning topped with the jam and Earth Balance.
Before settling on one recipe, I Googled around and found that most recipes are all fairly similar: crushed fruits + lemon juice + some quantity of sugar + pectin. The sugar content of most of them was high (2 cups!), so I cut it down by half as the blueberries I had on hand were already pretty sweet. Here’s what I did.
What You Need:
4 cups, rinsed blueberries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons pectin
2 teaspoons calcium water (this comes in the box with the pectin, along with instructions on how to make the calcium water.)
What You Do:
Add the blueberries to a large pot. Crush them with a fork, or, if you want to be fancy, use a drinking class to crush everything up (which is what I did). Add the lemon juice, calcium water, stir, and bring to a boil.
In a small separate bowl, add the sugar and pectin. Mix well.
Once the berry mixture is boiling, add in the sugar/pectin mix, and mix well for 1-2 minutes making sure all the pectin gets dissolved. Let stand for another minute, then remove from heat. Pour into clean jars, leave a little room at the top, and then seal tightly. Let sit on the counter for 12 hours (don’t open it!) then refrigerate. Sit back, relax, and revel in the fact that you are now a jam maker, you.
