Raspberry Jam

Well it is as promised a recipe for canning stuff. We did this about 2-3 weeks ago I know it's late but here goes. I made 2 different recipes because I have a brother who doesn't eat any processed sugar, so I had to attempt a wholly honey sweetened raspberry jam. Both were delicious! I do favor the sugar one only because honey tends to be a stronger flavor and there was a hint of it in the jam. Ok to the goods.....

bloggers note: For all my jams everything I add is either local or organic all of the fruit I have access to isn't organic accept the raspberries, so truly this is my only organic and local jam. Feels good.


Traditional Raspberry Jam (my way)

11 C. Mashed Raspberries ( I used a potato masher, rather nice for aggressions)
2 C. Honey (local please, don't by that shit from China even if it is cheeper)
1 C. Sugar
Pomona's Universal Pectin which allows for the drastic underuse of sugar to fruit ratio. This pectin is activated by the calcium rather than sugar like traditional recipes.
5 tsp. Calcium water comes with the pectin
5 tsp. Pectin

Heat mashed raspberries and calcium until bubbly. In a separate bowl mix pectin with sugar/honey this helps the pectin dissolve in the raspberries when you add it. Once it's bubbly add the pectin/sweets mix and re-bubbly it. Have your sterilized jars/lids/rings ready to go and the water bath boiling. To test if the jam is "set" to your liking I put a small dish in the freezer before I begin. After the jam has everything in it and is bubbling away, I take a spoonful and dump it on the freezer dish and put it back in the freezer for about 1 minute. This just brings the bubbly jam down to room temp quickly so you can see if you like how thick or runny it is. It was perfect so we moved onto the packing jars, lids, rings and get them in the water bath! We boiled ours for 12 minutes. Adding 1 minute for every 1,000 feet above sea level you are. I didn't write down how many 1/2 pints it made but I think it was around 12.


Jason's Raspberry Jam

This is the only honey recipe and it is a very small batch. It yielded 5 half pints.

4 C. Mashed Raspberries
1 3/4 C. Honey
2 tsp. Calcium
2 tsp. Pectin

Everything to process is the same as above, only I would have cheated and added about 3 Tbl. of sugar to help the pectin dissolve. It wouldn't blend with the honey and I ended up with pectin clumps that I had to squish. It slowed the process down considerably.