blueberry + vanilla jam

You might remember when I got a special delivery of 30kg of blueberries to my desk, followed by a frenzied purchase of bottles and jars from a jar wholesaler as I thought I would have to make the jam using fresh berries. Well, turns out I didn't have to and we ended up freezing them. Our freezer for many months has been looking like this...

...with every trip to the freezer followed by a thud, plastic crushing sound and a 'bloody blueberries!' curse under one's breath. We decided enough was enough and we had to get cracking with our blueberry of a dilemma. The big question: should we make one jar per couple or one jar per person? I had 160 jars on hand (as this was the minimum order from the jar wholesaler, Cospak in Melbourne), but we would probably only just have enough blueberries for one jar per person. We could always buy more berries we thought, so onward with the one jar per guest idea.

First thing, we needed a recipe seeing as though Mr M's mum wasn't familiar with blueberry jam making, although she could make raspberry jam in her sleep. Questions swirled, like: 'Do blueberries have pectin? In their skins? Maybe we'll just buy pectin...can we do that? What is pectin anyway? Maybe we don't need it...' Long story short, Mr M's mum found a blueberry and vanilla recipe (stating no pectin required) and infused with orange zest, lemon juice and cinnamon. After a small test batch I was convinced. Yum-yum, blueberry vanilla jam here I come. Next step - the farmhouse kitchen is totally lacking in benchspace so we brought the outdoor table inside to get everything ready - the berries, the sugar, the cinnamon, the oranges, the lemons, the vanilla, the scales, the cup measures, the jugs, the ladles, the giant pots. Check, checkity, check, check.

Then the recipe goes a little like this...

9 cups of blueberries

3 cups of sugar

12 strips of orange zest (about 7cm x 2cm)

6 tablespoons lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Pinch of salt

3 teaspoons vanilla to add at end of cooking

Pop your jars on a baking tray and put them in the oven whilst you cook the jam, just bring them up to about 60 degrees, warm to the touch. If they are cold when you put the jam in it won't set properly. If you are using old jars you need to really thoroughly wash and sterilise them, but ours were brand spanking new. Bonus.

Put all your above ingredients onto boil, boil, boil. Once the sugar melts and it's combined you boil it hard for about twenty minutes. This can get a bit messy with it spitting and spurting about, and apparently the better quality sugar you use the less foam will be created meaning a more 'pure' jam. What comes in here is a bit of mum-know-how, you can't really say to boil it for twenty minutes or for ten, or for however long, it's all to do with when the consistency is juuuust right. Mr M's mum had a very sophisticated droopy-goopy spoon and saucer test which she has used for forty odd years. I wasn't going to argue.

 

Once chief jam maker was satisfied with the consistency, it was off with the heat, add three teaspoons of vanilla essence (not imitation vanilla, oh no) and stir through. Then ladle into a jug and pour into the jars, taking out the orange zest as you pour. Top pro-jam maker tip is the jug for pouring, much easier. Genius.

Sorry I don't have more photos of the goopy-jam stage but it got a bit crazy in the heat of the moment as chief jar-er and quality controller...

Repeat five times and we got 35 little jars all lined up in a row. My jam jar army needs to grow to 118, we're thinking one more jam making day will do it (we only spent a few hours on Sunday afternoon doing these). I'll keep you posted on the jam jar army's growth.

Any jam making going on at your house? Or top jam making tips from seasoned professionals giving the orders? Anyone a professional in the pectin department?

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella