How to Make Low Sugar Blackberry Jam

This jam is one of the easiest to make in some ways, because there is very little preparation time involved. This is a beautiful, fragrant jam that tastes sweet and yummy! It is also healthy, in that there are no preservatives or chemicals and very low sugar.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 6 ½ cups washed, firmly packed, fresh blackberries
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 package low/no sugar, powdered pectin
• 2 tbsp. butter or margarine
• 4-5 glass jars, 2 cup capacity
• Large pot, preferably dutch oven style
• Measuring cup
• Tablespoon for measuring
• Large plastic or wooden spoon for stirring
• Ladle

1. Refrigerate your blackberries for one day before making jam out of them.

2. Carefully wash your fresh blackberries, removing any leaves, sticks, rocks, or anything else that shouldn’t be there. Drain them well and blot them dry carefully with a paper towel. You don’t want any extra moisture in your pot. Turn on your oven to about 200 degrees and place your empty jars on the rack to warm up.

3. Turn on your stove burner to medium-high heat and place the blackberries and the three cups of sugar in your pot. Start stirring immediately, gently. Stir the mixture constantly and consistently.

4. Once the fruit and sugar mixture starts to bubble, add the 2 tbsp. of butter or margarine. This is to stop the fruit mixture from foaming.
   
   Blackberries tend to foam the most out of all the berries for some reason. This is why you should use 2 tbsp. of butter instead of the usual 1 tbsp. When the constant, rolling boil occurs shortly thereafter, quickly add the powdered pectin and stir in well.
   
   Allow the mixture to boil while you stir it for one more, full minute after you have dissolved all the pectin powder in your mix. If some foaming does occur, scrape off the top with a large spoon and discard.

5. Turn off the heat, take out your jars one by one and ladle the hot fruit mixture into each jar. Seal your jars and place them onto the counter top where they won’t be touched for 24 hours. After 24 hours, your jam should have set beautifully, and is ready to spread on toast, or to be placed in your refrigerator for later use.

Tips & Warnings

• Use an oven mitt to work with your warm jars.
• Remember, there are no preservatives in this jam, so it must be refrigerated.
• Refrigerated jam lasts about one year in the fridge.
• Keeping the blackberries cold in the fridge for one day before cooking will ensure there are no grubs or bugs in the berries. Blackberries sometimes have these little white grubs in them. This will take care of that, as they can’t survive cold. Wash the fruit additionally, and you’ll have no other problems of this nature.
• If there is any foaming, which could occur more significantly when making blackberry jam, during the final boiling period, scrape any foam off the top with a large spoon and discard.

[Helvelyn]

on 9/13/2008 Seems your email will not work no confomation of sent
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GMS