Shelagh & Rorys 1st Strawberry Jam

We did it!!! It came out delicious - I'm so excited to have finally done this! There are a few small things I would change, but the Strawberry Jam project was a success. Both kids helped and had a great time doing it. I ended up consulting 2 different recipes - Pick-Your-Owns Homemade Strawberry Jam (LOTS of canning information here) and also a random article/recipe for Homemade Strawberry Jam I found via Google. Here's what we did...

I hulled about 3 containers of strawberries that we picked and then had to add in a 1lb container from the store to get about 7 cups of hulled strawberries which turned into 5 1/2 cups after mashing. The mashed strawberries on the left were the picked ones and the pinker ones on the right were the store-bought ones. The store ones smelled sweeter and were easier to mash.

Rory was the first to try mashing the strawberries with the potato masher and loved it. Below is Rory using his muscles. Shelagh had a more dainty approach. They both squeezed the juice out of 1 lemon together. Rory's hands got a little squished, but he was a trooper.

Here's the strawberry mixture after boiling with pectin, lemon juice and sugar. It was a beautiful crimson color and the kitchen smelled so sweet. Even though both recipes I was consulting, plus the pectin box jam chart, said I would get 8 half-pint jars, I actually got 10 plus a little bit more which Rory had on his PB&J today and Shelagh and I just ate. All the jars but 1 successfully sealed - yeah!! We're going to give some jars away. The kids are pretty proud of themselves.

Here's the 1st taste...

Next up will be Raspberry picking. I think we'll try a mixed berry jam with Strawberries, Raspberries, and maybe blackberries. This time I think I'll try Orangettes recipe which does not use pectin and uses much less sugar.

I'm sure I'll redo the recipe we used today, but I would certainly use less sugar. It called for 7 cups! That seemed like so much to me, but I didn't want to veer from the recipe the first time. It did come out very sweet, which I like, but I think I could take at least a cup out. There is a low-sugar pectin that calls for 4 cups but I couldn't find it in a couple of different stores. Also, they tell you not to use a blender or food processor to mash the strawberries, but I think I might use my smoothie hand blender on 1/2 of them to get less lumps. I like a smoother jam. Finally, I might get a food mill to deal with the berry seeds on raspberries. We'll see. Definitely a possible Christmas gift giveaway idea!!