Friday, May 11, 2012

Easy 3-Ingredient Strawberry Jam

My grandmother makes the best strawberry jam, store-bought jam doesn't even compare...seriously!   So naturally I thought her recipe was a family secret, or used magical strawberries, and was super labor-intensive to produce such awesome jam.   Nope, she told me that it was just three ingredients that (with a food processor) only took us about 20 minutes to make the first time we made it together.

I will never eat store-bought jam again!

Here is the rediculously easy ingredient list:
  1. 2 quarts of strawberries
  2. 4 cups of sugar
  3. 1 package of Certo liquid fruit pectin
The directions are pretty simple and after you do it once you probably won't even have to look at the instructions that come in the Certo box!

  • Cap the strawberries, wash, and chop (not puree) in a food processor for just a few beats.   You still want them to be kinda chunky
  • Put the chopped strawberries into a large bowl and add your sugar.
  • Add the Certo liquid pectin and stir it in well.
  • Quickly (before the pectin starts to set up) divide your mixture out into your jelly jars.   Cap them, let them set up for a few hours, then they are ready to use!   Place the extra jars into the freezer for future use or give to friends and family as a cute, homemade gift.

I don't have a ton of freezer space so I like to go ahead and put them in a water bath canner to seal the lids.   About 10 minutes in boiling water does the trick, then I can keep them in the cupboard at room temp for up to 1 year.   Great tasting and made with love!   Doesn't get much better than that!