Traditional Strawberry Jam.

It's strawberry jam week here on Trailer Gypsy. I spent last week working up 3 fun jam recipes all centered around strawberries that I'll be sharing throughout the week.

One of my canning books from the 70s has a recipe for strawberry jam and all it says is 4 cups strawberries, 4 cups sugar, process for 10 min. Hysterical. I love how they went into so much detail. I'm sure that recipe would've worked but you would have to process it for a long time to get it to the set point. Strawberries are fairly low in pectin so it's a good idea to add a little. Here is the recipe I like to use for strawberry jam.

6-7 c. hulled and chopped strawberries
4 c. sugar
2 T. lemon juice
1 box powdered pectin
1 tsp. each cinnamon and ground cloves (optional)

Note: I like really chunky jams so I only mash a few cups of strawberries but some people like to leave about half their strawberries chopped and then take a potato masher to the other half. Another thing you can do is macerate your strawberries which is basically letting them sit in sugar overnight. You can use about half of the sugar to macerate, and use the other half the next day while you're cooking the jam. I usually skip this step.

Before you start cooking your jam, fill up your water bath canner and turn on the burner, it takes awhile to bring it to a boil. Wash your jars in hot soapy water or on the sanitize cycle of your dishwasher. Put your lids in a small pot and warm them up on the stove so the rubber becomes soft, do not boil them.

Add strawberries, lemon juice, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar to a large non-reactive pot. Stir so the sugar mixes with the juices from the fruit (it will look like a thick pink mess at first). Cook on medium for about 15 minutes, until it thickens up a little. Be sure to keep an eye on it so it doesn't boil over or burn. Strawberries especially like to foam alot. Sometimes it's helpful to add a pat of butter to help keep the foam down.

Add pectin and let jam boil for 10 minutes. It should be a "rolling" boil, where even if you stir, it's still boiling.

Turn off the burner, skim the foam from the top of the jam and fill your jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace.

Wipe rims of jars with a wet cloth and then dry, apply lids and bands and process for 10 minutes. When your 10 minutes is up, remove your jars from the canner and wait for the little "pop" that they've sealed. If any of them don't seal (it shouldn't take very long to know if they haven't) pop them in the fridge and use within a few weeks.