(Almost) Perfect Strawberry Jam

Ever have a recipe that doesn’t seem like it’s working out and then it mostly does? This is one of those recipes. By Lucy Baker (of The Boozy Baker that has shown up here and here in the blog), it was cooking strangely and ended up ½ pint short of the yield, causing me to waste a lid. And then it was opened and super delicious and it spreads really well. Yeah. Almost perfect.

(Almost) Perfect Strawberry Jam from Perfect Strawberry Jam via Serious Eats:

Yields 4 ½ pints

1½ c. sugar

2½ tsp. Pomona's Universal Pectin

4 c. coarsely chopped strawberries (from about 2 farm stand quarts)

1 Tb. freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tsp. calcium water (included in the Pomona's packet)

¼ tsp. unsalted butter

1 c. honey

Whisk the sugar and pectin a medium bowl and set aside.

Combine the strawberries, lemon juice, calcium water, and butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add the honey and the sugar-pectin mixture and return the fruit mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil hard for one minute. This takes a little longer than you might think, hence by comment about cooking strangely.

Remove pot from heat and skim any foam from surface of jam with cold metal spoon. Ladle jam into hot sterilized jars and process them in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

It’s great with peanut butter or cream cheese or just on a spoon. Other similar pectin berries can replace the strawberries if you want to check this out right now and you can’t find those late season strawberries anywhere.