Homemade Strawberry Jam

About 4 years ago I discovered how to make homemade jams and jellies. Since then I am almost positive we have not bought any from the store. Once we made our own I never did like the taste of store bought. I've since made jam or jelly from apples, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries.

Strawberry Jam Recipe

Ingredients
2 quarts or 50 strawberries without leaves
3 1/2 cups water
2 Tablespoons vanilla
Juice from one lemon or 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
1 box Jel-Ease/Sure Jell
7 cups sugar

Directions

1. Gather your supplies. I made 8 jelly jars and 2 pints of jelly off this recipe. So that many jars with lids and rims, washed. A ladle for spooning finished jelly into jars. Labels for the finished jars.

2. In a large pot, place strawberries, vanilla, lemon juice and water. Bring to a boil. You will want the berries cooked enough you can mash them easily with a potato masher. Once the berries are mashed, add in the pectin. Continue to boil for 2 minutes.

3. Your mixture will start to look like this. Slowly stir in the sugar and boil another 2 minutes once all the sugar has been added.

4. I like to put my jars on a pan and set over the cool stove burners to make it easy to fill them without making a mess on the burners. *you will won't ysour jars hot. I usually fill them with super hot tap water and dump it out just before I need to fill them.

5. After the mixture has finished boiling, remove from heat and start ladeling into jars. Leave a 1/4 inch gap from the top of the jar so they will be able to seal. Wipe the lips of the jars before adding lids. Make sure the rings are tight.

6. After all the jars are filled flip them over and let them sit for 5 minutes. Turn back to their upright position and wait to hear the "pings" of sealed jars. Leave the jars sitting in the correct position for 24 hours before moving to allow the jam to set.

Jam on a pancake!

That's it! Takes me just under 2 hours from start to finish on this project. I usually make several different types of jam each summer to get us through til next season.

Oh and a tip! You want equal portions of juice to sugar so the jam will set. I think this recipe is pretty spot on for strawberry jam tho so you shouldn't have issues there.