Jam. Blueberry Jam.

I do love jam. Perhaps I love jam too much, if that is possible. I don't eat it with every meal or anything crazy like that, but I have dedicated a significant portion of a pantry shelf to 20-some jars of jam. These jams were made by this gentleman:

This is Daniel, and he makes Jam According to Daniel. At the time of this picture, he was teaching me, Melanie, and 10 or so other people how to make his jam. He even wrote a handy article on jam making, which I recommend you keep.

Now, this is the middle of the winter, and I do not have a freezer so large that I can store 12-cups of various fruits for a snow day where I need jam. But I did have 4 cups of local blueberries that Melanie was squirreling away for muffins. Those muffins will have to go blueberryless, because it's Jam Time.

"Brian," you may very well ask, "you have 20-some jars of jam. Why do you need to steal your wife's blueberries for more jam?" Two reasons. One, because I am out of blueberry jam, and that just won't do. Two, because I need to make something for you, my dear readers, and as I am snowed in and out of eggs, my options are strangely limited.

Jam making follows a very simple ratio of ingredients, and unlike baking ratios, this apparently works plenty well with volume measurements. 16 parts fruit to 4 parts sugar to 1 part lemon juice.

I have 4 cups of blueberries, so it's that, one cup of sugar, and a 1/4 cup of lemon juice. As it's such a small batch, I am not going to store it in the pantry. Instead, it'll just go straight to the fridge, which makes the creation of it much simpler and ditches all of the canning steps. More importantly, I don't have to be too crazy about how much acid I'm using, as acid is what does much of the heavy lifting in keeping your jam safe in the pantry. So I'm really just using the juice of one lemon. But know that it should be at least a 1/4 cup if you're doing anything for storage.

Combine, and allow to macerate for at least an hour. Macerating what fruits do when you combine them with sugar. It draws out the juices, and is essentially the fruit equivalent of a dry rub. My blueberries were frozen, so I had to let them thaw and macerate at the same time.

After cell walls break down and you have juices extracted reasonably well from the blueberries:

Bring the whole mixture to a boil, stirring so that you don't burn anything and you do a good job distributing the heat.

Let everything cool. This is a good time to stop for the day if you have other things that need doing, so you could refrigerate this mixture and come back to it up to a few days later. When it is cooled, bring out a strainer and separate the solids from the liquids.

Put the liquids back into the pan, and simmer and reduce to about 1/3 the original volume until the mixture is nice and thick. How thick? You're essentially using the old-time candy-maker's method of testing for consistency. I'm going to just quote the article by Daniel that I linked to above:

After 15 minutes, take the spoon out of the pan, let it drip over the syrup for a few seconds, and then perform a “drip test” by holding the spoon 6 inches above a room-temperature ceramic plate or bowl. If the fifth or sixth droplets to fall hold their form as half-orbs (resembling the erect yolk of a really good, farm-fresh egg in a frying pan)—and do not flatten out immediately into little puddles—then the syrup is thick enough. If the drops are not jelling yet, then the syrup needs a little more time. Repeat the drip test every few minutes as necessary until you have a positive result.

This is, incidentally, a great method for making pie filling as well, except you wouldn't necessarily bother with the initial boiling. You macerate to separate the liquids out, reduce the liquids, then combine and bake the pie. This gives you a very fresh taste to your fruit. In the case of jam, though, you're generally trying to kill bacteria for storage, hence the extra cooking step.

Now combine the fruit back with the syrup. Make sure the consistency is still good, and if so, you are free to add herbal, spice, or similar additions now that all the high heat steps are over with. Lemon zest is great here, but the sky is the limit.

Store in a jar, and refrigerate for a few weeks.

If you are making significantly more jam than I made here, then you'll want to jar it properly. Read the article above for the full steps, or check out Food in Jars for some better info on canning.