Ingredients:
1 cup crushed raspberries
3 cups crushed sweet cherries
3 tablespoons powdered pectin*
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla paste
Directions:
Evenly sprinkle the bottom of the Ball Jam Maker with the pectin. Spoon the fruit in a relatively even layer over the pectin. Press the jam button. You will hear a beep at 4 minutes. Sprinkle the sugar and vanilla paste over the fruit mixture while the machine is still running. Cover and wait for the jam cycle to complete. Press the cancel button and unplug the machine. If not using a Ball Jam Maker, make the jam on the stovetop using the traditional method as seen in this recipe.
Ladle the jam into prepared jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Process in the hot water bath for 10 minutes.
Yield: about 4 8-oz jars
*I recommend these jars of flex batch pectin.
Note: A great source for canning information is the Blue Book guide to preserving. I highly recommend it for learning how to can. Here is a bunch of other canning books and equipment I find useful.
My thoughts:
Once again the sweet people at Sweet Preservation sent me a big box of Washington stone fruit to can. For the first time it was cherries; more cherries than I have ever seen before. I’ve made a few things with the cherries, but I thought I’d share this one first. Last year I don’t think I made jam for the first time in years. We didn’t have a good berry crop here and I ended up making more pickles, ketchups and shrubs. This year looks like it is going to be a good one for our garden. I picked the raspberries I used here in just one day; the first day I had any ripe fruit. We finally have pawpaws growing this year too. Fingers crossed I can make something fun with them later this summer! Anyway, the cherries were super ripe and sweet and would have made a great jam on their own but why not take advantage of some other in-season fruit while you have it? The raspberries added a depth of flavor and for those who are seed-adverse, only a tiny bit of seeds to the jam–much less than would be there in straight raspberry jam. Plus it is a beautiful purple-red color.
Note: I know some canners do not like the Ball Jam Maker but I really do. It makes just about 4 jars of jam (perfect for someone like me who mostly does small batch canning), frees my stove up to cook up other things to preserve, and makes the jam in less time than it takes to watch a sitcom. Which you can, because you do not need to watch the jam while making it. Of course, you can safely can this jam the traditional way if you so choose.
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