• When selecting and preparing foods for canning, always check carefully for mold, bruises, holes, and cuts that may harbor bacteria or insect eggs.
• If there are children present, be sure they’re safely away from the stove and the canner during processing and that they understand that jostling or moving the jars during cooling can interfere with proper (and safe) sealing.
• Always make sure that your cooling jars are safe from jostling or tipping for at least 12 to 24 hours. You may want to keep pets and small children out of the kitchen during the cooling period.
As you can see, water-bath canning is a fairly simple process, and the extra tips and hints included in this book will make canning all of your favorite foods even easier. Before getting to the recipes, the next chapter addresses a few additional tips about one of the most popular canning groups: sweet spreads.
6
PRESERVING JELLIES, JAMS, AND OTHER SWEET SPREADS
Jams and jellies are versatile and can be used for just about anything in the kitchen. Preserving your own jellies and jams is a great way to have wonderful summer flavors all year round, waste less produce, and save a lot of money on store-bought spreads. Also, many store brands contain unwanted ingredients and tons of sugar. There’s no reason to pay more when you can make your own at home and decide exactly what goes in it and what stays out.
Jelly and jam have several different textures, flavors, colors, and uses. Most people only think of jelly or jam for breakfast. However, there are thousands of different possibilities when creating your own. For example, jalapeño jam is a great way to spice up a meal.
There are several different types of spreads. Here are the most common:
• Jelly is a semisolid mix of juice and sugar that’s firm enough to hold its shape.
• Jam is a jelly that contains bits of crushed fruit or vegetable.
• Preserves are small fruits left whole or fruit cut into pieces and preserved in thick, clear, jellied syrup.
• Marmalades have more concentrated flavors and are soft jellies often containing only the peel of citrus fruits.
• Compotes are made with either whole pieces or large chunks of fresh or dried fruits that have been simmered down in a syrup made from sugar and possibly other seasonings.
• Chutneys are thick sauces made from fruits, spices, sugar, and vinegar. The fruit is generally pureed or cooked down to make part of the sauce, and there may or may not be chunks.
Pectin
Sweet spreads consist of preserved fruits using sugar and sometimes a thickening ingredient called pectin. Pectin is a substance that can turn into a jelly texture when matched with the correct amount of acid and sugar. It can be found in all fruits, but some contain more than others. You can buy pectin at most grocery stores in the baking aisle, or you can blend fruits with low pectin amounts with other fruits that contain a higher amount of pectin.
For example, cranberries contain a ton of pectin and therefore no added pectin is required to create a spread. So if you want to make berry jam, you can add cranberries to it to raise the pectin levels. Cranberries are also a great way to cut down the sweetness level of a spread that may have extra-sweet berries in it, such as strawberries.
Here are some useful tips for making your jams, jellies, and preserves delicious and successfuclass="underline"
• Making these in small batches helps ensure that the fruit will cook quickly and the color and flavor will be better.
• When you’re creating your own jam and jelly recipes, remember this guideline: for every cup of fruit you use, you’ll want to add ¾ cup of sugar. For example, 4 cups of fruit will require 3 cups of sugar. Some low-sugar recipes and recipes using apples and other high-pectin fruits can use less, but this is a good general rule.
• Something to keep in mind when choosing your fruits is that perfectly ripe fruit or really sweet fruits contain less pectin than barely ripe fruits. So when picking or purchasing, choose slightly unripe fruit for your spreads.
• If you are using very ripe or especially sweet fruit, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of fresh or bottled lemon juice. The acid in the lemon juice will help the mixture thicken.
• You do need to watch out for scorching or burning fruit, as the sugar in the recipe can burn quickly. The best ways to prevent this are to watch your heat and adjust to a lower setting if needed, and to stir almost constantly during the cooking process.
• To test your jam or preserves to see if they’re done, take a spoonful out of the pan and set it aside. If it holds its shape after about a minute, you should be ready to start canning the mixture.
• Always be sure to adjust times based on altitude.
The Science of Gelling
Jelly and jam making is, to a certain degree, an original exercise in molecular gastronomy. To turn fruit and syrup into a delicious spread, you must have the perfect ratio of sugar to pectin to acid, and then cook it to the gelling point for your elevation. Pectin is a polysaccharide found in fruit, but it’s negatively charged, which means that its individual ions naturally move away from each other.
Acid, also found naturally in fruits, changes the charge to a more neutral state, allowing the molecules to move closer together. This is why it’s important to add lemon juice or citric acid to low-acid fruits when you’re making jellies.
The third necessary component of gelling, sugar, enters the scene at this point. Even with the higher acid content neutralizing the pectin, there’s still too much water for the pectin to bind into a firm gel. When heated, the sugar binds the water, which brings the pectin molecules together and forms a gel.
• Salt—added for flavor; is only a preservative when used in large quantities such as during brining
• Sugar, honey, corn syrup—preserves texture, color, and integrity of fruit; assists in gelling
• Vinegar—increases acidity to help fight botulism and increase shelf life (i.e., pickling)
• Artificial sweeteners—used to flavor water; do not use as a replacement for sugar
• Pectin—used to guarantee thickening of jellies because fresh fruit often has low pectin levels
• Citric acid—increases acidity of jellies so that they gel
• Lemon juice or vitamin C (ascorbic acid)—combats the enzymatic reaction between air and cut fruit that causes the fruit to turn brown. Dissolve 1 teaspoon of ascorbic acid or lemon juice in 1 gallon of water, and then soak your fruit in it.
Nothing is more frustrating to beginning canners than making your jelly, processing it, and waiting for it to set just to find out that it’s too runny. This happens when the acid-to-sugar-to-pectin ratio is off and can generally be avoided by using commercial powdered or liquid pectin. But what if you don’t have any or don’t want to use it? That’s okay, too. You can do a few things to increase your chances for success: