A really unique flavour combination jam for home canning made with Pomona pectin.
It’s these kinds of flavours that store-bought jams just can’t compete with.
You can make this with sugar, or honey, or you can make it sugar-free.
The recipe
Jar size choices: Either 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) OR quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 4 x quarter-litre (½ US pint) jars
Headspace: 1 cm (¼ inch)
Processing time: 10 minutes either size jar
Blubarb Jam
Ingredients
- 500 g rhubarb (3 cups cut into 1 inch pieces. About 1 lb. Measurements after prep.)
- 125 ml water (½ cup / 4 oz)
- 500 g blueberries (3 ½ cups. About 1 lb. Measurements after prep.)
- 2 teaspoons calcium water
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice (bottled)
- 2 ½ teaspoons Pomona pectin
- 250 g white sugar (1 ¼ cups / 10 oz)
Instructions
- Dice the rhubarb into small dice (to prevent stringiness in final product.)
- Put the rhubarb and water in a medium-sized saucepan.
- Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and let simmer for 5 minutes.
- Remove from heat.
- Mash the rhubarb in the pot with a potato masher. Set aside.
- Then, mash the blueberries a layer at a time.
- Put the blueberries into the pot with the mashed rhubarb.
- Add the calcium water to the blueberries and rhubarb. If using sugar or Splenda. add the lemon juice now. Otherwise, do not add it yet.
- If using sugar or Splenda. put them in a bowl, add the pectin powder, and mix. If using a liquid sweetener such as honey or liquid stevia, put instead the lemon juice in a bowl, add the pectin powder all at once, and stir it into the lemon juice.
- Put the fruit pot back on the burner and bring to the boil.
- When the pot has come to a full boil, stir in the pectin mixture a dollop at a time. If using a liquid sweetener such as honey or liquid stevia, add that to the pot now too.
- Boil for another minute.
- Remove from heat.
- Ladle into quarter-litre (½ US pint / 8 oz) jars.
- Leave 1 cm (¼ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Nutrition
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
Information about Pomona pectin.
What is the shelf life of home canned goods?
Recipe notes
- If you don’t get the rhubarb into very small pieces before cooking, then this jam can come out stringy from the fibres in the rhubarb (depending on the rhubarb.) If you have weighed the rhubarb stalks, then cut the stalks into thin strips and then dice.
- If using frozen blueberries, thaw them either on the counter or in the microwave. Don’t drain any juice off; mash that back into the berries.
- Mash the fruit by hand for best results. Using a machine will damage the pectin.
- Pomona pectin comes with a small pouch of powdered calcium for you to mix with water to make calcium water.
- The pectin powder will clump if you just mix it straight in; that’s why you mix it with something first.
- You can reduce the sugar, or use the same volume amount of granulated Splenda®, or 175 ml honey (¾ cup / 6 oz), or 2 teaspoons of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia.
Recipe source
Blubarb Jam. In: Duffy, Allison Carroll. Preserving with Pomona’s Pectin. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press. 2013. Page 57.
Modifications made:
- Suggested alternative pectin blending methods for various sweetener types.
Nutrition information
Sugar-free version with liquid stevia
Per 2 tablespoons:
- 14 calories, 8 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 to 3 tablespoons, 0 points. 4 to 9 tablespoons, 1 point.
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
Carolyn
Can I use frozen rhubarb? Any adjustments if I do so?
Thank you.
Carolyn
Healthy Canning
Yes, just be sure to measure the rhubarb while it is frozen before it thaws.
Diana
Can I safely use frozen rhubarb for this recipe? If it is safe, I am assuming I can skip the cooking the rhubarb 1st as freezing the fruit softens it. Thank you!
Healthy Canning
Yes, you could use frozen rhubarb. Measure before thawing. After that, do heat it a bit so that it will blend with the blueberries.