It is almost the end of blueberry season. Take an and hour and mix up a batch now to enjoy this winter. It only takes four ingredients to make this sweet topping for your sandwich or bagel. You can involve you school-aged children in this preserving process.
Equipment needed:
Water bath canner
canning funnel
jar lifter
jar wrench (if you are low on upper body strength)
kitchen tongs
small pan
potato masher
4 -5 kitchen towels
6 sterilized half-pint jelly jars plus rings and lids
Ingredients: Do not double this, make multiple batches as the pectin will not set in doubled recipes.
4 cups blueberries, washed and stemmed
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 pkg original pectin
4 ½ cups sugar
Directions:
Fill canning pot half way with water and put on stove to boil
Fill small pot with 2 cups water and put on medium, not boiling, add jar lids
Find a space to rest finished jam and spread a folded towel
- Mash blueberries one cup at a time.
- Add lemon juice and boil for 5 minutes.
- Slowly add pectin, stirring constantly.
- Boil for 1 minute, add ½ teaspoon of butter if it foams.
- Add sugar and mix until dissolved, stir constantly.
- Bring to a full rolling boil (doesn’t calm when stirred) , stir while boiling for 1 minute.
- Remove from heat.
- Set your jar funnel in a jar, use ladle or 1 cup measure to fill.
- Fill jars to ¼ inch of rim (less is fine if you want them all even)
- Wipe threads and rim clean, this is very important.
- Take lids from pan and place on filled jars.
- Screw rings on tightly.
- Using jar lifter, place jars into canning pot, nestle within rack. Water should be 2 inches above jar tops.
- Process at a rolling boil for 10 minutes.
- To prevent your jars from tipping, stuff kitchen towels around the jars. It is very important that the do not tilt over while processing or after. This compromises your seal integrity.
- If the boiling ceases for any reason, turn up the temperature and begin your timer again after the boiling has restarted. You cannot over-process this jam.
- After your timer buzzes, carefully remove your jam using your jar lifter. Do not use kitchen tongs for this. Place on the towel you set out earlier.
- Allow jars to cool for 24 hours.
- Test the seal- it should not flex when depressed. If the lid pops up of clicks:
- immediately reprocess the jar with a new lid.
- put in the refrigerator and use with a week.
- put in a freezer container or bag and freeze.
- Test the jam set- gently move the jar around to see if it has set. Blueberry jam is usually set within hours but ocassionally takes its sweet time (pun intended). If your jam is not set after 2 weeks, see Ball’s remaking soft spreads guide.
- Questions? See the Ball Fresh Preserving How-to.
find canning supplies at CanningPantry.com
Recipe courtesy Ball Pectin Package Insert
Photos courtesy recipes.mamikaze.com
