Homemade Strawberry Jam

It's June and that means strawberry season here in Eastern Washington!!  On Saturday Andrew and I braved the rain and went out to Carver Farms to pick strawberries!  We were soaked by the time we were done but it only took us 20 minutes to pick 4 buckets of berries.  One of the most favorite fruits in my household for eating fresh and making jam.  I make enough strawberry freezer jam during a week or two in June to last my family all year, it's a lot of work but totally worth it.  Want to know how I do it?

First let's talk about the ingredients.  Strawberries!  Berries should be ripe, firm, and a nice red color, I prefer to use fresh strawberries but frozen will work as well.  Sugar, granulated white sugar, whatever brand you choose.  Fruit pectin occurs naturally in fruits and is used for gelling, pectin occurs in very small amounts in strawberries, you therefore need to add some in order for your jam to set up.  You have to cook some pectin, be careful when cooking pectin it can be over cooked very easily and your jam won't set up (which is probably okay, you'll just end up with more of a chunky syrup.)  I've also found some no-cook pectin, eliminating the cooking step!  Or so I thought, turns out the no-cook pectin didn't help my jam set up very well.



You cannot double this recipe, it just doesn't work, your jam won't set up.  But that's okay, I've found a way around that, I didn't have all week to be making jam, so I made 3 batches at a time.  Using 3 separate bowls with a single recipe in each bowl, I was able to complete 3 batches of jam all at the same time.  Okay, I think that's about it, it's pretty simple.

Sarah's Strawberry Freezer Jam

4 Cups fresh, ripe, red berries, sliced in half
4 Cups Sugar
1 packet fruit pectin

Crush strawberries, I have done this 2 ways, using my potato masher and crushing them by hand or chopping them in the food processor.  The food processor is by far faster, and saves my hand from the strain.

Stir in sugar and allow to sit for about 20 minutes, or until sugar is dissolved.  Stirring every few minutes.

Prepare the fruit pectin according to package directions and slowly stir into the strawberry slurry.  

Ladle the slurry into freezer safe containers (I like to save margarine containers for things like this).  Set your jam in the fridge for a few hours to allow it to set up, then transfer to the freezer.

This method yields about 6 cups of jam.

We picked about 20lbs of berries and I did 11 batches of jam and we age quite a lot besides that!