Get ready to rev up your taste buds with raspberries.
The pinkish-red, delicately sweet berries of midsummer are ripening on South Sound vines.
For a few luscious weeks, raspberry lovers can pop them onto ice cream, fold them into pastries and eat them by the handful – fresh.
Yet if you act now, it’s possible to enjoy the summer treat year-round, albeit in a different form.
Christina McElroy knows firsthand how much better homemade raspberry jam is on the palate than the commercial kind.
McElroy, 47, has been canning and making jam since she was old enough to stand next to the stove. She grew up on a small farm in Puyallup, helping her mom put up foods harvested from their garden.
Today, the mother of two teaches music in public schools during the school year. Come September, she judges pickling, jam and other food entries at the Puyallup Fair.
She’s got canning cred. Since 1987, she’s been a food safety adviser through the Washington State University Cooperative Extension, which offers a similar program to train master gardeners. To earn the designation, she completed 60 hours of training in canning, jam- and jelly-making, food budgeting, nutrition and other aspects of food preservation and safety.
“The big thing I’d urge people is to make sure they’re using up-to-date processes and recipes instead of using what grandma did. People say, ‘My grandma would use wax (to seal jelly bottles). No one thought anything of it at the time.”
Now it’s no longer considered a safe preservation method.
But she encourages people to give jam- and jelly-making a try.
“Have fun. Don’t be intimidated. It really isn’t as hard as it seems. Even if you don’t come home with a blue ribbon from the fair, you did something no one else can do. That’s make homemade jam or jelly for your family and friends.”
Here’s a rundown of ways to extend raspberry rhapsody, courtesy of McElroy and several other people wise in the way of the raspberry.
FREEZING
To sugar or not to sugar? To freeze as a clump or separate? How you freeze raspberries depends on how you plan to use them. Whatever the ultimate use, raspberries should be frozen no longer than six to 12 months.
The sweet version. Wash berries briefly under cold running water to remove pesticides and bugs. Drain in colander, then transfer to large bowl, and stir in sugar to taste. Remember that sugar draws out the juice, and the longer the sugared berries sit, the more juicy they become.
People who plan to use berries to put on ice cream, pancakes, poundcake and the like should freeze them with sugar.
If you want to “dry pack” sugared berries, immediately place them into freezer containers or baggies and freeze. They’ll be firmer when thawed.
The unsugared version. Wash berries briefly under cold running water, drain in colander. At this point, there are several options:
• If you don’t mind the berries clumping, freeze in containers or plastic bags.
• To preserve the berry’s individual shape, place them on a cookie sheet so that they’re not touching; freeze for an hour or so, then place in containers or plastic bags and return to freezer.
• To make jam at a later date, mash berries, place in containers or plastic bags and freeze. Do not add sugar to freeze.
DEHYDRATING
Wash berries, shake off excess water and place in single layers in a dehydrator. Dehydrate at 150 degrees for two to three hours, then lower to 130 degrees until dry. Drying time depends on individual taste, but can be as long as a couple days.
Dried raspberries are a finger food and portable snack, but can be tart.
JAM
Recipes vary, but in general, most people use pectin, a naturally occurring carbohydrate found in fruits and vegetables, to thicken their jam.
McElroy advises following recipes on the pectin box exactly.
In general, jam recipes call for washing raspberries lightly, mashing the berries, adding pectin and sugar, then bringing the mixture to a boil. After boiling two to four minutes, the foam from the top of the mixture is removed for better appearance. The jam is ladled into sterilized jars up to 1/8 of an inch from the jar top. Once bottle rims are wiped, the jam is ready for “processing,” a term for sterilizing the bottled jam.
Hints:
• To make raspberry jams less seedy, Corine Kirscher of Auburn runs a quarter of the raspberries through a food mill, which mashes the whole berries into a pulp and strains out the biggest seeds.
Dorothy Chubb of Tacoma mashes the raspberries one cup at a time in a strainer and catches the juice that drips into a pan. Then she removes a couple spoonfuls of seeds before placing the pulp in the pan.
• Kirscher also runs whole berries through an electric grinder using a large, coarse blade, instead of mashing. That gives the jam a uniform consistency, says Kirscher, who took first place at the Puyallup Fair jelly contest in 2008.
• Chubb says using fresh raspberries makes for better jam than frozen raspberries. Frozen cranberries, however, make good jams and jellies.
• Chubb creates her own jam and jelly recipes by adding herbs and combining different
fruits to existing recipes. In 2008, she added raspberries with the herb lemon balm for her Lemon Raspberry Jam that took third place in the Puyallup Fair jam contest. So far this year, she’s made orange-basil jelly and rhubarb-cranberry jam.
• Kirscher adds a pinch of cinnamon powder to add flavor to her blueberry and blackberry jams.
PROCESSING JAM AND JELLY
A two piece lid and ring set are screwed onto the clean jar top. The ring should be “finger tight” – that is, not so tight that you won’t be able to unscrew it. Boil the jars in the canning processor – the stock pot with a frame for the bottles – for five minutes. The water should be 1 inch above the jars.
Some recipes advise turning off the heat, and letting the pot sit with the lid on for 5 minutes before removing the jars. That allows the jars to cool down and minimize the jam bubbling out of the jars due to a big temperature change.
Use a jar lifter or other tool to lift the jars out of the boiling water. You should start to hear pings or popping sounds as lids seal themselves to the jar rim. Let the bottles cool 12 to 24 hours, out of drafts, then check to make sure the lid is sealed by tapping the jar top. If the lid stays down, it’s sealed. Remove the ring. If it pops up, it’s not sealed. It can be reprocessed with a new lid or if it’s regular jam, refrigerated and used within a month, or if it’s low- or no-sugar jam, refrigerated and used within two weeks.
FREEZER JAM
Freezer jams yield fresh fruit flavor and brilliant color. Their biggest drawback, McElroy says, is that they tend to be runnier than bottled jam.
Recipes are similar to those for bottled jam except the berries aren’t cooked: wash and mash berries, stir in pectin and sugar, allow to stand, and pour into freezer containers. Frozen jam shouldn’t be kept longer than a year; if kept longer it loses its texture.
MAKING JELLY
Jelly-making involves the same process as bottled jam but uses berry juice instead of pulp. To obtain the juice, the berries are mashed and cooked on medium heat until they’re soft. The mixture is poured into a moistened “jelly bag” or cheesecloth covering a strainer that’s placed over a bowl. The juice drips out of the bag for a couple hours or so.
For 5 pounds or more of berries or cherries, McElroy recommends using a “steam juicer,” a three-chambered pot with water in the bottom, a middle section for juice and the top compartment for berries. Once placed on the burner, steam rises and cooks the fruit to release the juice.
TIPS:
• Instead of buying a jelly bag, Kirscher uses a finely woven cotton kitchen towel hooked over a strainer to let her mashed fruit drip. She feels like a jelly bag absorbs too much of the juice.
• Don’t squeeze the jelly bag or cheesecloth to hurry the drip process, even if that’s what the recipe recommends, Kirscher says. Squeezing makes the juice, and the jelly, cloudy.
STERILIZING JAM AND JELLY JARS
The good news is spoiled jam and jelly won’t kill you, says McElroy. But improper sterilization can allow mold to form, or jam and jelly to ferment. If there is mold when you open the jar, throw out the entire jar and do not eat.
It pays to pay attention to sterilization. “I really hate opening something I spent a lot of time on, and seeing mold on it,” McElroy says.
Bottles can be sterilized by washing in the dishwasher. Or, the bottles can be placed in a canning frame that sits in the bottom of a large stock pot and keeps the jars from hitting each other. The bottles should be completely immersed in water and boiled for 10 minutes. Lids can be sterilized in the dishwasher or boiled in water in a small sauce pan.
Don’t use paraffin wax to seal jam and jelly jars. That’s no longer considered a safe means to keep the contents sterile.
MORE INFORMATION
• Read the USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning, 2009 revision, go the National Center for Home Preservation at www.uga.edu/nchfp.
• See hints and recipes at the Ball website: www.freshpreserving.com.
Debby Abe: 253-597-8694
debby.abe@thenewstribune.com
RASPBERRY RECIPES
Spicy Raspberry Jelly
3 1/2 cups raspberry juice
1/2 cup habanero juice extracted with water and vinegar
7 1/2 cups sugar
2 (3-ounce) pouches liquid pectin
Place juices and sugar into a large pot on medium heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
Raise temperature to medium-high and bring mixture to a boil for one minute.
Add pectin. Return to a full boil, stirring constantly for one minute.
Skim off foam. Place jelly into hot half-pint canning jars, leaving 1/4 inch of head space.
Seal with a two-part lid. Process in boiling water bath for five minutes.
Source: Evon Fuerst, Renton. This recipe took first place at the 2009 Puyallup Fair Jelly Contest.
Apple-Raspberry-Blueberry Jelly
Process 5 minutes in hot water bath. Yield: Three 1/2 pints, and one 1/4 pint.
2 cups Langer’s pure apple juice (pasteurized)
1 cup raspberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup water
21/4 cups sugar, divided
3 tablespoons Sure-Jell pectin For Less or No Sugar Recipes
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
Crush raspberries and blueberries. Put in saucepan with water and cinnamon stick.
Bring to slow boil and simmer 5 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick.
Pour into a jelly bag or into a strainer covered with a tightly woven kitchen towel or cheesecloth. Let crushed berries drip until you have 1 cup juice.
Measure 2 cups apple juice and 1 cup berry juice into 6-quart sauce pan.
In small bowl, mix pectin with 1/4 cup of the sugar. Stir into measured juice. Bring to a full boil.
Add the 2 cups of sugar. Boil 1 minute. Skim off foam.
Ladle jelly into hot sterilized jars; leaving 1/4 inch head space.
Source: Corine Kirscher, Auburn. This recipe took first place at the 2008 Puyallup Fair Jelly Contest.
Lemon Raspberry Jam
5 cups crushed raspberries
6 cups sugar
1 bunch (about 1 cup) lemon balm, a green leafy herb
1 teaspoon butter
1 (1.75 oz.) package dry pectin
Wash and crush raspberries one cup at a time. Use strainer to allow berry juice to separate from pulp and excess seeds. Add some of the pulp to each cup of raspberries.
Place prepared berries into large saucepan. Add butter and pectin. Tie lemon balm with string and place in mixture. Bring mixture to a full boil over high heat. Stir in sugar quickly. Return to a full rolling boil and continue boiling for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Remove lemon balm. Skim off foam. Ladle quickly into hot sterilized jars, filling to within 1/8 of an inch of tops. Wipe jar rims and threads. Cover jars with hot lids and rings. Place jars in canner with boiling water, making sure water is at a full boil. Boil for 10 minutes. Remove hot jars from canner and place on towel to cool.
Source: Dorothy Chubb, Tacoma. This recipe took third place at the 2008 Puyallup Fair Jam Contest.
