Luscious Strawberry Peach Jam with Pomona's pectin

 

I finally converted my favorite jam recipe over to Pomona's pectin and I am so glad I did!  The flavor of the fruit is amazing.  Perfectly sweet and less than half the sugar of the original.  After all, this is a fruit jam, not a sugar jam.  Of course after making jam for a few years, store bought jam tastes horribly sweet, artificial and not fruity at all.  No comparison to homemade.  And it only takes an hour to throw together a small batch of jam once you get in the canning groove.  Actually, when I first started canning jam and didn't have a water bath canner, I used a large soup pot to can a batch of squat half pints.  Since they were short, wide jars, it worked just dandy.  ((Though I did put a washcloth on the bottom of the pan to prevent rattling.)  I usually make small batches of jam for our family because we don't go through it super fast, plus it gives more opportunity to try new flavors.  

This is about a 2 pint recipe.  The peaches I used were from a local farm, frozen and available in the grocery store.  They were amazing.  Even frozen, I broke open the bag and was enveloped by the wonderful aroma of peach.  The strawberries were not organic, but from another local sustainable agriculture farm and had beautiful color and flavor.  I would always recommend organic strawberries and peaches unless you know that the farm does not use pesticides as those are two very heavily sprayed crops.  I don't want pesticide jam.  Frozen is fine out of season; do try to get a brand you know is very flavorful.

Strawberry Peach Jam

yields about 2 pints

2 cups fresh ripe strawberries (or a 10oz. bag frozen)

2½ cups sliced peaches, chunked (about 12 oz. frozen peaches)

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp butter

1¾ cup evaporated cane sugar (up to 2 cups if your fruit is less than perfectly ripe)

2 tsp Pomona's pectin

2 tsp calcium water (from the Pomona box)

Wash and rinse your jars and let stand in hot water.  If you want to save a burner and a pot, just put the jars, lids and rings right into the water bath canner until ready.  I won't tell.  ☺  Put the fruit through a  food mill using the coarse disc. Or you can just mash them with a fork or potato masher.  Put the fruit, lemon juice, butter and calcium water into a large saucepan.  Measure out the sugar into a separate bowl and thoroughly mix in the pectin.  (This pectin will lump if not thoroughly mixed.)  Bring the fruit mixture to a boil, add sugar pectin mixture and stir vigorously for a minute or so to dissolve the pectin.  Bring back to a boil for a minute and then remove from heat.  Remove your jars from the hot water, draining well; set up and fill to within ¼" of the top.  Make sure the top is clean and screw on the two piece lids.  (Bring the water back to a boil while you are filling.)  Put the filled jars in the water with at least a couple inches to cover and boil for 10 minutes for half pints, 15 minutes for pints.  Remove jars from water and let cool.  Check seals - the lids should be sucked down.  The jam will gel when completely cool.

This jam is absolutely fabulous on buttered toast and fresh bread.