Jam On: The Craft of Canning Fruit

I received this book for Christmas a couple of years ago and it is my favorite cookbook of its type. (I have four or five jam cookbooks) In fact, I love it so much that I just bought a copy for my sister. This book has made me think about jam making in a different way and I have used it as a jumping off point for many wonderful jams. In particular, I like that you can make low-sugar jams and non-pectin jams. It also promotes the use of Pomona Universal Pectin which is made from citrus and activated by calcium instead of sugar, so you can turn any jam into a low-sugar version. Just be sure to include 2 or 3 tablespoons of lemon juice to bring your low-sugar jam to a safe pH; this also makes your jam have a fresher flavor. If you can't find Pomona locally, it is available on Amazon. Or use the chart in the book to combine high pectin fruits with low pectin fruits and dispense with added pectin.In addition to the recipes, there is a section at the end of each chapter called "Making It Your Own" that has suggestions for changing the recipes with encouragement to be adventurous. My favorite of these suggestions was for Apricot Jam. The original recipe calls for thyme and vanilla; these were substituted with saffron and I LOVE the results. And don't be afraid to make substitutions. I wanted to make the Sugar Plum Fairy Jam, but it called for 1 C of ice wine - too pricey for me to drink, much less use in jam. But I substituted a late harvest Riesling (at the suggestion of our local wine expert) and it worked well.The book goes beyond jams into pickled fruit, shrubs and syrups, and there is a chapter of recipes that use some of the jams. There is no recipe for Moroccan Chicken, but I suggest that you make the Moroccan Preserved Lemons and find the chicken recipe on the web. Wonderful!This is so much for fun than the advice to never change a single thing in a recipe that you find on the pectin box.

I am aggravated at the high price of this Kindle book - more expensive than the hard cover here on Amazon. What is up with that? I'd give it five stars otherwise.Now that I have that off my chest, this is one of my favorite canning books - and I've read a lot of them. I just made a batch of peach/cardamom/lemon verbena jam (except I substituted lemon basil from my garden). It turned out absolutely delicious. Some jams are simplistically sweet, or else pectin-thickened. I like Pomona's Pectin okay, but I can taste it and thus would rather not use it if I can avoid it. I was glad this particular recipe did not use pectin. I had to cook it much longer than the recipe directed in order to get it up to temp, but I am sure that's because of the extremely juicy O'Henry peaches I used, plus my ancient electric stove and a not-suitable-for-canning dutch oven. I forced myself to be patient for the full 40 minutes it took, and the results are SO worth it. The set is perfect. There's just a hint of caramel undertone. The flavors remind me of the kinds of flavors Blue Chair creates: haunting, a little mysterious, but not so complex they'd be out of place on toast or spooned over ice cream. The recipe made six half pints. I'm going to be real sorry when they're gone, and I look forward to my next batch from this book. Highly recommended.

Excellent cookbook! Makes cooking and preserving jams and jellies easier. I also love how the author writing style: personable, down-to-earth, simple and not flowery. She’s not only straight to the point, but also fun and encouraging. Plus, the variety of jam/jelly recipes encourages me to start cooking and experimenting right away! I highly recommend this book! Love the title, too. Very creative. 😁

I am new to "Jamming" and this was very helpful. I liked that it has "adult" jams, I have tried 4 and my husband agreed that they're going to make great Christmas gifts for friends and family. We're starting to make some more of adult varieties, they are very tasty. Yum!

Great recipes and instructions on how to can with reduced or no sugar. I love this book so much!

It's against my personal policy to return something just because I don't like it; otherwise this book would have been sent back to Amazon the day I received it.The major problem with this book is that the recipes don't follow the proper guidelines for canning. Proper canning guidelines are that for anything that gets processed in a water bath for 10 minutes or less, jars are to be sterilized. Jars are sterilized by being brought to a full rolling boil and then being boiled for 10 minutes, at which time the heat under the pot can be turned down and kept hot until the jars are ready to be filled. Nowhere in this book is sterilization part of a recipe. Every recipe says to bring the empty jars to a boil and then turn off the heat. NOT A SAFE CANNING PRACTICE.The next problem with the recipes in this book is that a lot of them call for not very common ingredients (calcium water - an ingredient I'd never even heard of until this book - and I do a great deal of canning, rosewater, Grains of Paradise - whatever the heck that is, just to name a few). While canning and jamming is beginning to get trendy, it's still something practiced mostly by "country folk" like myself, not people who live in New York City and have access to all kinds of specialty stores within an easy walk or quick subway ride.The recipes in this book strike me as not genuine - they're recipes for "foodies" - or for people who want people to think of them as foodies at least (posers in other words). To me it feels like the recipes are created to impress people with how wonderful a cook you must be to have created such an interesting treat, rather than having been created to satisfy your stomach and soul.Want some good canning books? Get yourself a coy of "Food in Jars" by Marisa McClellan, "Tart and Sweet" by Kelly Geary and Jessie Knadler, our Southern Living's "Little Jars, Big Flavors." These books are all filled with wonderfully tasty and special treats made with easy to find ingredients, which follow current USDA guidelines (I'd originally written FDA in error, for which I apologize) for preserving.

This is one of my favourite jam books. For one thing she doesn't dwell on the tried and true and talks about how to make more interesting jams. She has pages of variations! Took me a while to figure out that there is a difference between jam and preserves. Maybe it's because I live in Canada that it took me a while, since we call everything that has fruit in it jam. But definitely a good reference book.