Jam Inventory

Spring is here when I start talking jam! Woo hoo!

Some information before the current inventory...

Most commercial jams have half the fruit to sugar ratio (1:2)
Mine has either equal fruit to sugar (1:1) or 3 times the fruit to sugar (3:1).

So while the sugars and carbohydrates may look similar to commercial, the actual amount of fruit (versus high fructose corn syrup) is 2 - 6 times the commercial brands. The flavor can NOT be beat and it actually ends up being reasonably good for you too!

Advanced orders are welcome. Please let me know the Wednesday before the market (Saturdays at Otsenengo Park) so that I may box it up for you. Contact me at BoomsBaker@gmail.com to order. Quantities are limited right now, and first come first served!

Prices will vary some with variety - due to availability of fruit/flower, however I will try to keep them as similar as possible. Descriptions of each jam. Also - Jar prices have increased.
Red Prices are 2010.
Black are 2009
Orange - Sold Out.

Apricot 8 ounce - $3 Update - Sold Out
Blueberry 8 ounce - $3 Update - Sold Out
Blubarb - 4:1 - 8 ounce - $6 Update - Sold Out
Cider Rhubarb 4 ounce - $3
CranCider 8 ounce - $3 - Update - 1 Left
CranCider 4 ounce - $2 - Update - 2 left
CranOrange 8 0unce - $3 - Sold Out
CranOrange 4 ounce - $2 - Sold Out
Coffee 4 ounce - $3 - Update - 3 Left
Hot Pepper 8 ounce - $3
Hot Pepper 4 ounce - $2
Rhubarb 8 ounce - 3.25
Rhubarb 4 ounce - 2.25
Rhubarb Diabetic 8 ounce - 5.25
Rhubarb Diabetic 4 ounce - 3.25
Rose 4 ounce - $2.75 - Update - Sold Out
Violet 4 ounce $4

Jam Descriptions

Almost all will come in reduced sugar/diabetic friendly - it always depends on volume of fruit.

Apricot Jam
Our Apricots are from Our Green Acres in Owego this year. Being high in Vitamin A makes apricots a valued fruit. This jam contains no sulfur dioxide – a common additive for apricots. Apricots are surprising - the cooking brings out the flavor, making it ideal for the heartiest breads, including sourdough rye, honey oat and whole wheat.

Blackberry
These are homegrown blackberries in a chemical free environment. They are high in C, K, Manganese, Copper and Omega 3/6 fatty acids. The epitome of summer flavors!
Great on homemade white, whole wheat, honey oat or sourdough breads, and a variety of ice creams!

BlueBarb Jam (Blueberry/Rhubarb)
Our jam is made with only locally grown fruits, many from our own land. We use the smallest amount of sugar possible.
Blueberries and Rhubarb are both high in C, K, and Manganese, with Rhubarb also being high in Calcium and Potassium.

Blueberry Jam/Jelly
Homegrown in a chemical free environment, blueberries are high in C, K and Manganese as well as anti-oxidants, and are being researched for age-related eye health.
Perfect on homemade white bread toasted for breakfast.

Cherry Jam
Made with fresh local sweet cherries and as little sugar as possible. Cherries are a good source of dietary fiber, potassium and antioxidants and have a far lower glycemic index than most other fruits.
This jam is very delicate in flavor, making it perfect for warm biscuits or a homemade white bread.

Cider Cinnamon Jelly
The Cider is from The Cider Mill. As little sugar as possible was used - to help maintain the cider flavor. Cider Jelly isn’t faint of heart like store-bought apple jelly is. With Cinnamon added for that perfect apple pie quality, it’s great to use with just about anything.

Cider Rhubarb
Local Cider makes any jam taste better. For those who don’t like Rhubarb, try this mellower version. It really tones the Rhubarb down, and adds zing to the cider.
A great jam for any type bread, biscuit or over ice cream!

Cinnamon Plum Jam
My favorite tea is cinnamon plum. So when I thought of Plum Jam, I thought of cinnamon plum. This jam is made with Owego plums, and has just a hint of cinnamon that you can smell when spread on warm toast. Wonderful!
Perfect for thumbprint cookies, hot biscuits, white or honey oat bread toasted for breakfast!


Cuban Coffee Jelly
Strong, Dark and Sweet – that’s Cuban Coffee! Contains CaffeineJapanese eat this as a dessert, with whipped cream. Add a little to a cup of coffee, eat with cream cheese and crackers, use in thumbprint cookies, filling for cakes or doughnuts or on ice cream.

Cranberry Apple Jam
By grinding cranberries and mixing them with fresh cider, you get the best of all worlds! Cranberries are extremely important to our health; so enjoy them in all forms. Enjoy this on any bread, over ice cream, or mix with horseradish for crackers or turkey sandwiches!

Cranberry Orange Jam
By grinding the cranberries and oranges together before making the jam allows the flavors to mix together so well. And since both are important to your health, enjoy this additional way of eating them!
Use with any bread, over ice cream, or mix with horseradish and serve with crackers or on turkey sandwiches!

Ginger Peach Jam
Our local PA peaches are high in Vitamins A & K; fiber, protein, copper and omega 6 fatty acids. The hint of ginger makes this jam perfect on ice cream or white bread.

Grape Jam
This year’s Concord Grapes are from Montrose, PA. Concord Grapes are rich in poly-phenols, as well as Vitamins C, K and the mineral Copper.By making jam, rather than jelly, the flavor is intense and perfect for anything you serve it with or on. Bread as hearty as sourdough rye to homemade white bread will work well with this jam.

Hot Pepper Jelly
No Artificial Colors!
The Jalapenos in the jelly are organic and dried to preserve flavor when in the jelly. The chili powder and paprika add a layer of flavor as well as the color that gives it a naturally hot look. It’s pretty tasty! Try it on cheese and crackers or as a side to cooked game.

Peach Jam
Our local PA peaches are high in Vitamins A & K; fiber, protein, copper and omega 6 fatty acids. The hint of ginger makes this jam perfect on ice cream or white bread.

Peach Nectar Jelly
This jelly is made with what’s left from canning peaches – no waste! Peaches are high in A & K; fiber, protein, copper and omega 6 fatty acids. Its delicate flavor is perfect on white bread, biscuits and thumbprint cookies.

Rhubarb Jam
Homes without a rhubarb patch are difficult to imagine! Rhubarb is high in fiber, vitamins C and K; and the minerals Calcium, Potassium, Manganese. Rhubarb is spring! This jam will hold its own with the heartiest of breads such as rye, sourdough or sourdough rye. It's also wonderful on many ice creams.

Rose Petal Jelly
Made from the heritage rose, 7 Sisters, which has been on our property for about a century. Grown free of chemicals, its heavy scent is what makes this jelly phenomenal! Use on thumbprint cookies, between layers of angel food cake, or on a PB&J. It’ll hold its own easily!

Strawberry Jam
Washing, hulling and sorting the strawberries is an annual event for many of us who enjoy good company and laughter while working. Strawberry jam is often the quintessential flavor of summer, captured in a jar! Enjoy.

Strawberry Jelly
Strawberry jelly has a more delicate flavor than jam, making it more suited for hot biscuits or French toast than PB&J.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Combining strawberries and rhubarb seems an instinctive move – pairing the tart, acidic rhubarb with the smooth, sweet strawberry. This jam is great in a PB&J, on pancakes or waffles, or warmed up and poured over ice cream!

Violet Jelly
Violets are rich in anthocyanins (antioxidant), and vitamins A and C.
The flavor of the jam is how a violet smells – fruity and delicate. It can hold its own with cream cheese and crackers, but is best on thumbprint cookies or between layers of angel food cake.

Make Your Own Jam

All my life, we have made our own jam. We rarely make jelly, since it wastes good fruit, but utilizes overripe and bruised fruit. I truly can't remember a time in my life that we bought jam or jelly, unless for a very specific flavor that we didn't usually make. And in our house, if it isn't easy, it doesn't get done. So you know it must be relatively easy to make!

Because I've had home made jam all my life, I've begun making it to sell at a local farmer's market. Doing this made me do some research and reading of my cookbooks to make sure I have a consistent gel, but otherwise, it's business as usual. Everyone who has bought, just raves that it tastes so much better than store bought. Of course it does! It has fruit in it!

This post is going to discuss why you should make your own more than how to make your own. To do that, just pick up a box of pectin at the store and read the directions. Read the jam and jelly making process in any one of your dozen or so cookbooks lining a shelf in your house. Between the two, you will learn all you need to make your own.

Taste

This is probably the best reason for making your own jam. Store-bought jam/s and jellies are mostly water, corn syrup or apple juice, or a combination of all 3 with some fruit thrown in for color and a hint of flavor. Using the standard pectin recipes, your jam will have the same amount of sugar as store bought, but will have twice the fruit! Hence, the better flavor.

Nutrition

Most fruits are high in fiber and manganese, with vitamin K tagging along because it can. They're also high in other vitamins, but these tend to be damaged or destroyed during the heating process. And once you get good at making jam, you can reduce the sugar further, making it less stressful on your insulin levels, plus be more flavorful in the process.

Cost

Believe it or not, you save money making your own. A quart of chopped fruit, 4-5 cups of sugar and a pack of pectin should make 6-7 cups of jam. Your sugar will cost 80 cents, your fruit will be around $5 and the pectin will be just over $2. If you reuse jars from other foods - like store bought jam - you have no cost. Otherwise, you'll spend about $8 for a dozen 1-cup jars, lids and rings. This comes out to about $13 for 6-7 jars of jam. Not bad! Again, if you don't have to buy jars, that price drops to about $8 for the batch.

Sustainability

The food industry would like you to believe you do nothing good for the environment by preserving your own foods. They're lying. They expend at least 5 times the energy in the transport of the ingredients, production of the final product, and transport and storage of the final product until it hits your hot little hands than what you would expend in making your own

You can either grow your own fruits, or buy locally grown fruit. Transport is significantly reduced or negated completely.

Most local growers use few, if any, chemicals on their produce since it costs more to use them than to manually take care of the fruit plants. Since most chemicals are used as a preventative measure (in industrial farming), rather than as a true cure for a specific issue, you are eliminating this portion of the environmental cost completely.

The energy required to make their specific jar shapes and sizes costs them significant energy in production and transportation. If you reuse your jars, you completely negate this energy expenditure.

Summary
There are a few tricks to making jams and jellies, but a little reading in one of your cookbooks, along with the directions that are included in the pectin - or on one of their websites - will provide you with all the information you need to make incredible jam! People may think you're a magician, but it's all a matter of being able to read and follow directions! Seriously!

Give the jam as gifts, keep and savor for yourself, or do both. Just do it! Save yourself some money, make your tastebuds happy and help the earth out. How is this a bad thing?

If you'd like to read about the ones I make and enjoy eating, please click here.

Jam I Make

To go with the post about making your own jam, I thought I'd add to it. These jams are for sale, so if you'd like any, please contact me at BloomsBaker @ gmail.com for prices and availability. The most sugar I use is 1:1 fruit to sugar ratio. I also do a 3:1 ratio for the diabetics among us. It costs more to make, and therefore to sell, but is worth it. I try to keep my prices lower so folks can buy it and enjoy it for themselves. It's difficult when prices of fruit are very high and I have to add my labor in, but I do my best.

Rhubarb Jam I have few that I could eat exclusively, but rhubarb is one of them. The flavor holds its own against any amount of sugar. I love the stuff.

The picture is of young rhubarb, just emerging in the spring. The leaves are incredible looking.







Rose Jelly

I know, it sounds odd, but truly, it is delicious! I tell guys it's a girl thing. It tastes just like a rose smells and the flavor lasts so much longer than any breath could possibly try.
It's wonderful on biscuits, thumbprint cookies, or as a filling between layors of angel food cake.






Strawberry Jam

I'm not the fondest of strawberry jam, but it does epitomize the flavor of spring. It's best on a homemade white bread toasted for breakfast!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Yes, with rhubarb, I'm liking it. It's good for a change of pace for me, but many people consider this the ultimate jam. It's not quite as robust as just rhubarb, so I wouldn't try this on sourdough rye bread, but will do well on oat or whole wheat.

Raspberry Jam or Jelly

I tell people that if they pick the berries, I'll make the jam. I hate picking, I hate growing or buying them. This year, the price was $4.50 a PINT. I'd need a full 3 pints for a batch of jam, so this is a very cost prohibitive jam to make.
However, it is delicious and will hold it's own on any bread other than a sourdough. I'm not a fan of the two flavors mixing. And the dutch had it right - raspberry and chocolate are a match made in heaven!


Blueberry Jam or Jelly
Blueberry jelly ends up being a very delicate flavor, and should be reserved for biscuits, but will hold up to a white bread toasted.
Blueberry jam, made with the reduced amounts of sugar I use, is far more robust, allowing you to really know you're eating blueberry! I'd not pair it with anything stronger than an oat bread or a half and half whole/white wheat bread, but that's for you to decide.

Blueberry Rhubarb or Bluebarb
This is another I could eat exclusively. For some reason, the pairing of these 2 flavors is nearly potentiating - where adding gives you a multiple for a total. It will add to any bread, and is also incredible heated a bit and put on ice cream. Divine!

Peach Jam and Jelly
Peach is unique, I must say. I prefer it as a fruit butter, because it can be just too sweet as a jam. However, if you get them at just the right time and are willing to play just a little with your sugar - which is an experience thing - it is absolutely delicious on anything from biscuits to sourdough rye bread.
Peach jelly is very delicate, and makes you think of what a peach blossom must smell like. This is made when you are canning your peaches for the winter, using all of the over ripe, or bruised peaches and the skins/pits that are discarded. The color is a beautiful blush of peach, and the flavor is wonderful on a white bread toasted or on biscuits. I've not tried it in thumb print cookies, but would imagine it's very good.


Apple Jem
It's not quite jelly and not quite jam. Therefore, it's jem.
I began thinking that, with all industrial jams/jellies being watered down to half-strength, I'm guessing apply jam or jelly is pretty good. It, like all of the others in the store, is pretty flavorless, so I decided to try making some.
It's great! My first batch was made of green apples and I'd liken it to an apple pie. It's wonderful! From there, life was easy and GREAT. It does have a more delicate flavor, so it may not hold up to sourdough, but will be very good on anything else.



Quince Jam

Most people don't even know what quince is. That's sad since it's quite a cool plant and and even more cool fruit to cook. It starts out as this yellow/green, and as it cooks, it becomes a wonderful deep red. I would eat this exclusively, given the chance.
Unlike apple, it will hold up to any bread, and is also incredible in thumbprint cookies.

Jam Making

I've been making jam. A lot of jam. For the farmer's market, which gives me a little cash flow, which is always nice. I can make jam - versus other far more perishable goods - when I have a little extra energy, rather than forcing the issue the day before the market. Like today!

I went and picked rhubarb at my aunt and uncles since my 2 clumps need a little time to recover. I've got enough for at least 8 batches, and probably more than that, if I really pushed the issue.

Since I hate regular store-bought jam, and since we've always made our own anyway, it seemed a natural thing for me to make to sell at the market. Sales are just starting to pick up, so I'm getting more hopeful about continuing to make it.

I always get angry when the jam doesn't set. Well, I have done a ton of research on the topic and have come to many conclusions...

Sugar is cheap. Fruit is expensive. Make jam with as much sugar as possible.

Pectin is a sugar, and needs regular sugar to help it set - it's a loose crystaline structure.

Pectin needs different cooking times with different fruits - whether you're using what's in the fruit only or supplementing with store-bought.

The sugar helps decrease cooking time as well as unify cooking times.

Rhubarb just coming up this spring.

By reading Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, I was able to see that longer cooking times might be needed - and won't ruin the setting. It gave the perfect visual que that the jam is ready - when the drops on the spoon suddenly congeal into one before they drop off the spoon. Ha! And that you can cook it too hotly. So if you have a longer cooking time, turn the heat down.

This also works with lower sugar amounts.

And while there are different types of pectin that will work better with high or low sugar or no sugar batches, you can putz around with it and make it work with just about any pectin. Which is why I bought a huge bag (10#) through Pacific Pectin. That'll be enough for roughly 80 batches of jam. LOL - I think I'll have enough. But still - at .80 v. 2.30 per batch, that's a huge price difference that I'd rather have in my pocket than sure jell's.

Last year's blueberries.

So right now, it's rhubarb jam and blueberry rhubarb jam. Very soon, the blubarb will be replaced with strawberry rhubarb, and strawberry. And very very soon, I'll be able to make a batch or two of rose petal jelly. The 7 sister's is getting ready to bloom, and so will use that. It's an old heritage rose that has gorgeous scent and color - perfect for jelly!

If you have a problem with your jam - cook it longer and at a lower temperature. It'll come together for you!

Peach Pit Jelly

I have finally finished working with a bushel of peaches. It was only 2 days worth of effort really, so I'm not going to argue. Last year it was close to a week.

Peaches were gorgeous this year! PA peaches - FYI. Few bruises, wonderful flavor and texture. It was just a great year.

I had hoped for 26 pints of peaches, plus a batch of jam. Well, I got 38 pints canned, 4 frozen and the batch of jam. Life is good!

Every year, when we do peaches, my mom speaks of when her mother canned them. She was newly married, and now doing the canning with mother in law and sister in law, who had never heard of scalding the peaches to peel more easily. They asked her what she did with the skins - make jelly, just like you. Oh!

So, I got thinking about it this year. I went online and started searching. What I found was called Peach Pit Jelly. Sounds just so wonderful, huh? LOL - I thought the same thing. But, read the directions and the ingredients and decided this is basically what Grammy made. So - I gave it a try.

The Recipe
Skins and pits from 1 bushel of peaches
Water enough to cover skins/pits in pot by 2"
Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes
Place in 3 layers of cheese cloth
Hang and let drip until dripping stops - 2 hours
Measure 3 1/2 C of juice - boil down to make 3 1/2 or add water, as necessary
Add 4 1/2 C sugar
Bring to boil
Add liquid pectin - boil 1 minute at sea level
Skim foam, ladle into jars, process as you would any other jam/jelly.

What I did
I skinned and pitted the peaches over a bowl, to catch any juice as well as the skins/pits.
I only boiled 2/3 of the stuff since that's all I had that day. I also only added about a half cup water - just to make sure it didn't stick to the pan.
Boiled for about 15 minutes (I did the boiling before I found the recipe!)
I didn't boil the juice down - it looked pretty thick already, and had 5 1/2 C of juice.
I used the clearest of the juice to make the jelly
From here I followed the directions.

Very interesting flavor! I don't know that you could say it was peach if you had to do a blind taste test, but very light, very floral almost. It's hard to explain.

It's way too sweet for me - as most jams and jellies are, but it's worth trying if you work with peaches at all. Very good! Mom likes it, so I'll make a batch a year.

Today, when I finished up the peaches, I decided to make some more of the juice and added it to the syrup for the peaches, rather than water. I ended up making too much syrup again, so will use it as the base for my bread and butter pickles. LOL I don't think it'll add much to their flavor, but it may. And these peaches have a much nicer pink/peach look to them, rather than the yellow/peach they usually are. Will comment on the flavor when we open a jar.