I have seriously underestimated how tricky it is to make perfect jams, jellies and preserves. This year I’ve seen most of the common problems: Unset jellies. A jam set too hard. Uber sweet syrups that weren’t exactly what I had planned.
No lie, it’s been a little frustrating.
I know many of you may be thinking, “Geez, Hank. You can nail so many weird and technical cooking tasks elsewhere, what’s so hard about jam?”
Welp, it’s because until this past fall, I never really ate it. Seriously. Almost never. Before I moved to Minnesota, I almost never baked and never ate toast in the morning. Many times breakfast was just a Kind Bar, coffee and some fruit.
But in November of last year I began a long journey of discovering the secrets of rye bread. I’ve been baking a rye loaf of some sort almost every week since then, and only this month have I finally posted a rye bread recipe I can call my own.
When you make bread, you eat toast. It’s the law. I don’t own a toaster. My “toast” is basically fried bread: Melt butter in a pan, brown both sides of bread slices, eat. It’s amazing if you’ve never done it.
But it’s better with something sweet, at least for breakfast. I tend to be a sweet breakfast person, not a savory one. (That said, serve me a Taylor ham-egg-and-cheese sandwich on a kaiser roll and I will love you forever.)
I had had a collection of jams and jellies given to me by their proud makers, and eating through them — I’m especially fond of raspberry jam and lingonberry preserves — I can see why they were proud, once I began making my own.
It started with a batch of rose hip jam from rose hips I brought back from Alaska. I made a whole flat of jars, and they never set. Wah. They’re still in my pantry. Maybe I’ll make a sauce with them for grouse or ducks….
Then I took at stab at my friend Alan’s chokecherry jelly recipe. I read somewhere that chokecherries are high in pectin, so I didn’t add any even though Alan says to. Got the mixture to 220F, put it in jars… and no set.
Then I read something else that said chokecherries are low in pectin. I got the fancy pectin that Alan recommends, reheated the now chokecherry syrup, added pectin, and… still no set. Gah. Not exactly sure what to do with achingly sweet chokecherry syrup now, but I might turn it into tooth-breaking fruit leather or maybe dilute it, ferment it, then turn it into vinegar.
Now armed with pectin, I made a batch of blueberry jam, again following a recipe. This one set too hard — it won’t spread on bread, which is the whole point. So I may reheat it and add water to see if that will loosen it up, or I might say screw it and use it as filling for hand pies, where a firmer filling is useful.
OK, let’s unpack a bit here.
First, I am not dumb enough to not use a recipe. I am aware that making jams and jellies is technical. But those recipes! I generally trust people like Alan, and to be fair (cue Letterkenny chorus) it was me who screwed up his recipe, but you can find recipes all over the map.
I saw one that called for twice as much sugar as berries. I saw another that called for a whopping 4 ounces of pectin, for an 8 half-pint batch. I see people adding lemon juice or leaving it out, adding pectin or leaving it out, honey as a sweetener, etc. etc. etc.
And don’t think this is just an Internet thing. I have a shelf full of preservation books that have recipes, and they’re all over the place, too.
Generally speaking, I trust Marisa McLellan from Food in Jars, and Cathy Barrow of the various Mrs. Wheelbarrow books. And Alan. There are likely lots of other good, solid sources out there, too.
Second, turns out there are different goals with jams and jellies. There’s the “healthy” jam and jelly crowd, the one that adds little or no sugar to things, or worse, adds things like Splenda. Apparently these recipes work (haven’t tried them), but they definitely won’t keep as long as a “regular” recipe because the high sugar content is what keeps these products from spoiling or fermenting. I am just me in my house, so I need things that keep well.
Finally, there is a ton of misinformation about the pectin content of various wild fruits. Sure, we’ve established that citrus rind, apples and a few other things have lots of pectin, to the point where apple + wild fruit is a standard practice.
But I see conflicting information everywhere about wild fruits, so I am still unsure which have high pectin, and thus don’t need supplemental pectin or apples added, and those that do need it. And this matters because if you add pectin to a high-pectin fuit you get basically a hard block, or a gummy at best.
I write all this to let you know that if you’re struggling with your own jams and jellies and preserves, I am, too. So if you have any sure-fire, no-fail sources you fell like recommending, I’m all ears — especially for wild stuff.
Great information here in the comments, so thanks! Yes the Food in Jars books are great. For really basic stuff we still use the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. Our favorite jam is thimbleberry. One to one sugar. No pectin. This year was dry so a little added water helped.
You are all experts, and I am a happy novice. I can eat rubbery jam just fine. Most turn out great. Not setting? Boil longer! If it refuses to set? Drink it as a cordial, or add as a syrup to ice cream or yogurt. There are literally no losses :) Chutneys are great fun too :) I made a garlic strawberry concoction, simply because I had scapes at the same time as a proliferation of berries. Right now, everything is peach and blackberry!