Homemade jam

June means one thing   ..  . .. LOTS and LOTS of berries!  For some reason, this year we have a bumper crop of berries.  I think maybe they are more accessible since DH has been cleaning up the train wreck that was/is the lot.  In any case, he has gone out every evening for about 10 days and harvest a good pound or two of black raspberries.  He also has harvested maybe 4-5 pounds of mulberries.  What to do with all of these berries?  So many options . . . but if you want the berries to last for a long time, homemade jams and jellies are the way to go.  As you can imagine, we have been busy canning homemade black raspberry jam.  (The mulberry jelly is being made as I type.)  It’s really pretty simple, but messy since berries stain like crazy!  Man, if you ever want to dye something, berry dye is the way to go!!

Anyhu, here are a few pics of the canning process. (NOTE:  this is probably not the correct way to do it with the pectin, it’s what I did and it mostly worked.)

First you mix the berries and a TON of sugar and some lemon juice, leaving it in the fridge for about 2 hours until the sugar is dissolved.

Before dissolving

After dissolving and smashing the berries

Then  I added the pectin and heated it up to boiling, and it almost boiled over!  I should have used a bigger pot!  Once it boiled, I let it boil for one minute, then removed it from the heat.

Then I poured it into the jars, leaving a wee bit of headspace, and the processed the jars in a giant pot with boiling water for 10 minutes.  Once done, the jars were removed and placed on a towel to cool for about 12 hours.

I think it still needs to set for another week or two, since it’s a wee bit runny, but that actually makes it really nice for spreading, and it makes a killer sauce for pancakes and especially icecream!  DELISH!