Homemade Strawberry Jam by Darkroom and Dearly

Hi, friends! I’m Brittany from Darkroom and Dearly, and I’m so excited to be guest posting for the lovely Miss Julie Ann today!

Since summer is fast approaching (unless you live in Portland like I do, wherein you shouldn’t expect the sun to come out until July…) I wanted to share with you one of my family’s favorite May traditions: making strawberry jam!

Not only is the recipe very simple, but the process itself is so delightful. Each year we cheerfully head out to the strawberry farms, baskets in tow, expecting to fill our totes, stain our fingers, and return home to spend the afternoon canning fresh strawberries (the ones we haven’t eaten already, that is!) Every year we think we’ll stop at one or two baskets, but the ripe strawberries beg us to keep picking, and inevitably we return with thirty pounds or more and the slightly guilty feeling that perhaps we didn’t need quite that much fruit.

At any rate, there’s hardly anything better than strawberry jam, and with thirty pounds of fruit, you can even use the leftovers to make breads, pies, dessert toppings, pancakes, and cakes if you happen to run out of canning jars. (Heaven forbid!) Then again, perhaps you have stronger will power than us, and you’ll stop picking before you hit the weight capacity of a small pony.

Here’s the recipe for a simple no-heat strawberry jam. It turns out somewhat runny, but still delicious. If you’d rather have a more jelled jam, a boiled pectin recipe works well, but it tends to be a much messier/ time consuming process, so beware.

Put strawberries in a blender and blend until smooth. In a medium bowl, stir together sugar and package of pectin until well mixed. Add the strawberries and stir for 3 minutes. Transfer mixture into clean freezer jar. (Leave a little space at the top since it will expand when frozen.) Twist on lid and allow to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes to thicken. Freeze until ready to use.

This is for one 16 oz jar of jam. If you’re like us and pick 30 pounds of strawberries… you may want to 30-tuple the recipe and buy pectin and jars in bulk. Just sayin.

Best of all, you get to enjoy a day in the fields with the sun and the strawberries! Have fun, and happy early summer!