Did I tell you that all the jam we made with my mother-in-law didn’t turn out….it turned into syrup….I guess too many cooks in the kitchen does spoil the brew..or something like that. Anyway, after our strawberry picking, I knew we had to give the strawberry jam another chance.
It really is incredibly simple. We went out and bought 2 cases of jelly jars, Certo premium liquid fruit pectin, lemon juice, and sugar. That’s all you need….except for the fruit! The whole process only takes about 1/2 hour..but my mother-in-law warned me to never double or triple the recipe. She said it never comes out…so, to make things quicker, I made a batch, Quinn made a batch, and Tuesday made a batch…all at the same time!
The recipe is inside the Certo box. First, you have to wash and rinse the strawberries and de-stem them. Once that is done you measure out 4 cups and start mushing them up. We realized that putting them in the food processor is much easier and quicker!
Then you add the sugar, all 4 cups!! That is a lot of sugar!! Maybe next time I’ll try to cut down on the sugar..but who knows…I guess you don’t mess with a good thing! After you add the sugar, you start to stir it and let it stand for 10 minutes, stirring every now and then.
Then, you stir the packet of pectin into 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and pour it into the prepared fruit. Once you do this…you have to stir the bowl constantly for 3 minutes.
Then you are done..except for putting all the fruit into your jelly jars. You let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours…and if everything went well, it should gelify (not sure if that is a word). Then you store it in the freezer for up to a year!
So, we made 24 jars of jelly (I made another batch on my own!) for about $30..not bad!! Hopefully, that will last us until next Strawberry season!
