Strawberry Jam

Dad has been bringing me strawberries ever since they've had then at the Denham farmer's market. I've thoroughly enjoyed them - eating them raw; making sorbet; cooking them into random dishes and this week making jam. It's been a while since I made strawberry jam since I wasn't thrilled with my last foray into making strawberry jam. However circumstances - only having half a jar of homemade blueberry jam left and having six pints of fresh strawberries - compelled me to try my hand again at making strawberry jam.

I've leveled up some in jam-making since my last attempt - the last strawberry jam being my first jam ever. I was amazed at how much easier it was to make the strawberry jam, now that I have some vague idea of how to make jam. I had six pints of berries so I knew I needed one box of pectin and that one cup of the sugar seems to get used up with the jam making process. The extra sugar for the jam making process is where I went wrong previously. The "trick" is that you have to get the jam as sweet as you want and then add another cup of sugar for each box of pectin you use.

Strawberry Jam

6 pints raw strawberries, halved or chopped
3 cups sugar
1 box pectin

Pour sugar over the cut berries, stir and let them alone for an hour or so; stirring occasionally if you like. Once some juice has been drawn from the strawberries by the sugar, simmer the berries until the they are translucent. Let the berry mixture cool until it is room temperature (you can stick it in the fridge overnight). Now, this is the tricky part you want to add a little bit of berry mixture to the pectin to make a paste and then slowly dilute the paste with more berry mixture until you've added ~2 cups of the berry mixture. By doing this, you're trying to avoid getting lumps of pectin in your jam. Add the pectin mixture to your berry mixture and stir to combine. Boil for one minute and then can if you wish.