How to Make Homemade Jam

Every summer, my Mom turns out batches of the most beautiful homemade strawberry jam you can imagine.  It's a vibrant, beautiful red, almost pink, and it tastes so sweet and fresh even when you crack open a jar at Christmas-time months later.  Nothing I buy in the store compares.

I have always been intimidated by the thought of making my own.  What if it doesn't gel?  How do you know it's sealed right?  That the jars and lids were sanitized right?  Sealing glass jars seemed so daunting, and so important to get right.  Heaven forbid you mess around with food safety when you're giving gifts or feeding your own small children!

Luckily for me, Mom knows what she's doing, and when you have an expert to show you what each step looks like, it's really not hard.  Like so many things in life, the invention of how to do it probably required genius, but once someone who knows how clears up the mystique, it's actually pretty simple.  (Knitting, baking yeast breads, jam.... Mom is so good at teaching me life's little mysteries!)

Since it's not really strawberry season anymore, we picked a fruit that's at it's peak.  Here's how we made Peach jam!

Step One: Invite an amazing friend over who is extremely helpful and good with children

Step Two:  Sanitize the glass jars, flat metal lids, and screw bands.  Boil the clean, empty glass jars in the canner while you assemble other ingredients.  Pour boiling water over the flat lids and screw bands and let them sit.

Screw bands and flat lids, sitting in hot water until needed.

Empty glass mason jars, boiling until use.

Step Three: Peel and finely chop four cups of peaches.  Add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.  We peeled and roughly chopped them, then finished them in the food processor so that they were quite finely chopped but there were still visible chunks of peach.  I bought 4 lbs of peaches, and ended up using 7 to get the four cups.

Step Four: Double check to make sure you have the exact amount of fruit required by your recipe (most pectin packages come with recipes if you need one) because otherwise your jam might not set.

Our food processed peaches and the Sure Jell pectin we used.

Step Five: Measure out your sugar so it's ready to be added all at once.  It's important to be exact or the jam might not set.  Our recipe called for five and a half cups of sugar.

Step Six: Stir the box of pectin into the fruit and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil.  (Bubbles even when you're stirring.)

Step Seven: Add the sugar all at once while stirring and return to a full rolling boil, then boil EXACTLY one minute, stirring constantly.  Mom stressed the importance of precision in every step to get the jam to set - she had us prepare a timer before we started heating up the fruit and pectin, so we could press go the second the sugar began boiling again!

Why did you THINK jam tastes so good?
(Just don't eat it all at once.)

The sugar has been added and the mixture is boiling while stirred -
START THE TIMER!

Step Eight: Remove from heat and skim off the foam (see above photograph).

Removed from heat, with the foam scooped off.

Step Nine: Remove glass mason jars from boiling water and get ready to fill them.

Step Ten: Fill the glass jars almost full, to about 1/8th of an inch from the top.  Wipe any dripped jam from the top and threads of the jar.  Cover with the flat part of the lid, then screw a band tightly onto the jam jar.  Place the filled jam jar into the canner.

Probably you should use a towel when holding the hot glass jar! 

Step Eleven: Fill remaining jars and add to canner.  Make sure they're covered by at least one or two inches of boiling water, then boil the jams for ten minutes.

Filling jam jars!

Jars of jam, sealing in the canner.

Step Twelve: Remove jars and let sit upright on a towel to cool completely.  Then let sit out at room temperature for twenty four hours.  As they cool, you may hear little pops as each jar vacuum seals.  To check and see if a jar has sealed, press down on the center of the lid, if the lid springs back, it didn't seal and you need to keep it in the refrigerator and use within a week.  Otherwise, jams can be stored for up to a year before opening and refrigerated three weeks after opening.  (Hence Mom's amazing tradition of gifting people with Strawberry jam around Christmas time!)

We are so awesome. (Alternate caption: Peach jam, cooling on the counter)

*Note: It's recommended by canning experts that you remove the bands for storage, since moisture trapped in the threads of the jar could cause them to rust, and because they can make a jar seem sealed that isn't.  Keeping them on for gifts and transport is fine!

Serving suggestion - homemade white bread!

Mimi entertains Andrew from his supervising position on the kitchen floor. (Will was napping.)

Thanks Mom!