A beautiful home-canned jam in which all you can taste is the strawberries, with just a hint of added sweetness. Made with Pomona pectin.
You can make this with sugar, honey, or any sweetener of your choice.
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
Strawberry Jam (Pomona)
Yield: 4 x quarter-litre (½ US pint / 8 oz) jars
Ingredients
- 1 kg strawberries (2 lbs / 8 cups quartered / thickly sliced. Measurements apply to after prep)
- 2 teaspoons Pomona pectin
- 2 teaspoons calcium water (10 ml)
- 200 g white sugar (1 cup / 8 oz)
Instructions
-
Wash and hull the strawberries.
-
Mash the strawberries a layer at a time in something like a pie plate using something like a potato masher.
-
You should end up with around 1 litre (4 cups / 32 oz) of mashed strawberries. A tidge under or over is fine.
-
Put in a large stainless steel pot.
-
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, ladle out about 4 tablespoons of juice and put in a small bowl. Add the pectin powder all at once, and stir it into juice. Set aside.
-
Add the calcium water to the pot.
-
Bring the pot to a boil over high heat.
-
Add the pectin mixture a little at a time, stirring constantly.
-
Let boil vigorously for another 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
-
Remove from heat.
-
Ladle into 125 ml (4 oz) OR 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 jars for 10 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
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.
Recipe notes
- If using frozen strawberries, zap from frozen in microwave first for 3 minutes. Incorporate any juice that comes off into the mash.
- Don’t crush or mash the berries in a machine, it 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 125 ml (½ cup / 4 oz) honey or use 1 teaspoon of liquid stevia. For stevia, we’d recommend Better Stevia liquid stevia.
Recipe source
Simple Classic Strawberry Jam. In: Duffy, Allison Carroll. Preserving with Pomona’s Pectin. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press. 2013. Page 50.
Modifications made:
- None. Slightly redid pectin powder process to accommodate stevia in liquid form.
Nutrition information
Sugar-free version with liquid stevia
Per 2 tablespoons
- 11 calories, 6 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 1 to 3 tablespoons: 0 points; 4 to 11 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.
Kathryn Green
I’ve used Pamona pectin for years. Why does my strawberry jam turn out dark instead of bright red? Thank you, Kathryn