This morning, while perusing my vast collection of recipes on my computer, I stumbled across a document I had thought lost forever; a series of jam recipes a pastry friend and I developed when we were running a funky little foodie blog called Chronic Masterbakers. The blog now being defunct (*sadness*), I wasn’t able to locate the original post with the recipes, and since I couldn’t find my original Word doc (due to it apparently being misfiled, yay), I thought I would never see them again.

Granted, I have posted other jam recipes that were either developed by myself or modified from original sources (my favourite being the Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving); namely my wedding jam guest favours. I have posted about my pineapple vanilla bean, blueberry nutmeg, and raspberry jams, and these are all very good, but I so-very-much wanted to rediscover the first jams my friend and I made back in 2011 for our former blog.

Well, since I’ve found them, I wanted to re-post them in this blog so my readers have the opportunity to recreate these amazing jams the next time they have some spare time and a bunch of fruit (yay!). As this doc had only the ingredients listed for each recipe (with the exception being the Spiced Golden Plum Jam at the end which lists both the ingredients and the method), I have included a link to all of the steps to home preserving/canning HERE directly from the Bernardin website, to ensure that first-time canners get the information directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

StumbleBum-bleberry Jam

This jam was a super hit with all of our recipients!

Original Source: Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving
Plus: Our devious little changes, heh…

• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 4 cups assorted berries (we used raspberries, blueberries and strawberries)
• 7 cups of granulated sugar
• 1 Vanilla Bean, split and scraped (add bean and seeds before boiling the jam; remove bean before ladling into jars)
• 1 – 3oz/85ml pouch of Bernardin Liquid pectin

Raspberry Port Jam

Not at all boozy, this jam holds just a *hint* of the lovely port taste that pairs so well with raspberries. Buy a good-quality port for this recipe; you and your jam recipients will appreciate the difference!

Original Source: Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving
Plus: Our devious little changes, heh…

• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 7 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups seeded raspberry pulp*
• 2 cups crushed raspberries including the seeds
• 1/4 cup port (we used Tawny port, but a Ruby Port, or even a sweet sherry would go nicely)
• 1 – 3oz/85ml pouch of Bernardin Liquid pectin

*To make two cups of raspberry pulp, push four to five cups of raspberries through a fine sieve. Work in batches to make life easier. We cooked down the raspberries that were to be seeded to make it less onerous.

You may be wondering why you’re supposed to toss out so much yummy pulp! Well, raspberries are seedy little buggers. You don’t want to eat any raspberry product that has not had at least half of the seeds removed or you will be picking them out of your teeth until you die. …or at least have a little raspberry bush growing in your belly. 🙂

Strawberry Jam

A simple, flavourful, and straightforward strawberry jam, it doesn’t get any easier than this. This jam was made at the express request from the Hubster, who is very fond of clean, simple tastes.

Source: Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving

• 3 3/4 cups crushed hulled strawberries
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 7 cups granulated sugar
• 1 – 3oz/85ml pouch of Bernardin Liquid pectin

Peach-Nectarine Cardamom Jam

We loved this jam with an unholy passion; absolutely delicious on anything from toast to cake fillings, this jewel-like jam shows the diced peaches and nectarines floating tranquilly in their sea of yellowy-orange. Make sure to gently upend the cooled canned jars frequently in the 24 hours of setting time they need to ensure proper distribution of the fruit (or else they may float to the top and stay there until they gel).

Original Source: Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving
Plus: Our devious little changes, heh…

• 4 cups pitted and peeled peaches and nectarines, finely diced (place in covered bowl or sealed plastic bag with lemon juice to preserve colour and freshness)
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 7 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2-3/4 tsp cardamom (depending on taste)
• 1 pouch liquid pectin

Chronic Masterbaker Sawse

This fruit sauce (“sawse”) was a happy accident for us; fifth of the six jams we did over the course of one weekend, we got a little silly from tiredness and started adding whatever fruit leftovers we had left, not to mention a few things that just sounded like they would pair well together. This sauce is stunningly delicious over vanilla ice cream or plain pound cake, and makes a delicious addition to smoothies.

If you want to thicken it to a preserves consistency, add a second pouch of liquid pectin.

Original Source: Zee Chronic Masterbakers, yo!

• 1/2 cup crushed blueberries
• 1/2 cup crushed raspberries
• 1/2 cup crushed hulled strawberries
• 1/2 cup peeled, pitted and finely diced peaches
• 1 cup pitted and sliced black cherries
• 2 Golden Delicious apples, cored and finely chopped
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 6 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teabags peppermint tea (torn open and added directly to boiling sawse)
• 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped (add bean and seeds before boiling the sawse; remove bean before ladling into jars)
• 1 pouch liquid pectin

Two-Day Spiced Golden Plum Jam

I personally couldn’t say no to a beautiful container of luscious golden plums when we went out fruit shopping at the market, and so I had to find a recipe that would highlight their awesomeness satisfactorily. This recipe did the trick! Keep in mind that this is a very tart jam.

Original Source: Lindy’s Toast blog (http://www.lindystoast.com/2006/08/the_plum_projec.html)

Plus: Our devious little changes….

Yield: 8 – 4oz mason jars

• 3 pounds yellow plums, quartered and de-stoned, but not peeled OR 2 lbs plums and 1 lb other stone fruit
• 3 cups sugar
• juice of one lemon
• vanilla bean, split
• 1 tsp ground cardamom

Day one: Put plums, sugar and lemon juice in a large glass or stoneware bowl, toss to blend. Let sit one hour at room temperature. Transfer to preserving pan, or any heavy nonreactive pan of suitable size. Bring to a boil. Boil 1 minute. Return to bowl. Cover with circle of parchment paper and refrigerate overnight.

Day two: Transfer fruit back to preserving pan, add vanilla bean and cardamom. Bring to a boil and continue to boil until it reaches 220F on a candy thermometer, skimming foam. To test for jelling with plum jam, the foaming generally dies down and changes when it has jelled.