I love making jam, and making up fun names for my jams is a big part of why I love it hahaha. For years and years I've been making 'Jilly Jam' with silly names like 'berry peach screech' and 'so good it's scary blueberry' or 'berry barbie' (strawberry rhubarb); this time I wanted to combine black and blueberries and make 'black and blue' jam - and it turned out amazingly good! Like so so good I couldn't wait for breakfast toast and jam the next morning.
I have no idea where I got it but in my cooking stash is 3 boxes of pectin of "Pomona's Universal Pectin" for lower sugar recipes, I followed their basic instructions with a couple changes. Here's what I did:
- 6 cups mixed black and blueberries
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 3 teaspoons pectin
- 3 teaspoons calcium water (came in the box with the pectin, I've never seen that before)
- 1 teaspoon butter, optional (it helps cut down the foam that forms when boiling the fruit)
note: I like my jam to be chunky so I don't mash the fruit too much, I chop it with one of those handheld circle things (know what I mean? I have no idea what it's called - it's a sharp ring with a handle). You can totally mash it to your preference tho, a potato masher works good for that.
Put the fruit, lemon juice, and calcium water in a pan and bring to a full roiling boil. Meanwhile combine the sugar and pectin in a separate bowl. Once the fruit is boiling add the sugar/pectin mixture and stir vigorously for a couple minutes until the sugar is dissolved, add the butter if you have a lot of foam. Remove from heat.
Ladle the jam into sterilized, hot jars (if you have a canning funnel it'll keep things way cleaner) leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Wipe the rims with a wet paper towel, top with a hot canning lid, screw on the ring. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes, carefully remove the jars (I use long tongs) and set aside too cool. When you've heard the jar make a 'ping' sound you know they've sealed. Push the center of the lid, it should not have any give - if it does then it didn't seal and you need to store those jars in the fridge.
This recipe made 6 small jars of jam (I like to put jam in the really small jam jars, I think 4 oz?, when I have them - so I made 3 small jars and 6 mini jars), plus a little bit more that I just put in a covered container in the fridge (pictured above).
Note: I didn't write out all the canning instructions, you can go online to see more on prepping to can (sterilizing jars, putting the lids in a small saucepan of hot water, having a large pot of water boiling to be ready to process the jars once you've filled them - none of it is hard, I just don't want to type the whole thing and instructions will come in the pectin box!)
