If you get the chance to do any berry picking this spring/summer it’s possible you may have TOO MANY berries. It’s exciting and very easy to be overzealous with your picking. I am guilty of this and thus, I make jam!
Most of the jam recipes I found required a LOT of sugar and that’s not really my thing. I searched for recipes that used agar agar and found that most used a fraction of the amount of sweetener. I went with honey has my sweetener but you can still use sugar or agave.
The amount of strawberries left were enough jam to fill a little more than one jar. I only had a pints worth of overripe strawberries.
Sampling the jam on a gingersnap cookie shaped like the state of Texas
Ingredients
1 pint overripe strawberries (1 FULL cup sliced/hulled)
1 large lemon (juiced and zested)
H20 to cover berries (1/2 – 1 cup)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup chopped mint (or more-whatever you’d like)
2 1/2 teaspoons agar (let this bloom like you would gelatin)
Add all your ingredients except the agar into a pot and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil uncovered and reduce for 10-15 mins or until your strawberries have begun to break down. Add the agar, stir it in well and let boil for another 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally.
You can ladle this into sterilized jars or unsterilized ones (these wont last as long but i doubt you’ll have the jam around too long anyway). So far I’ve had this with cookies, in oatmeal, on vanilla ice cream…. I enjoy the tang of lemon and the sweet of the berry in the recipe. Feel free to make changes and let me know if you like it!
If you get the chance to do any berry picking this spring/summer it’s possible you may have TOO MANY berries. It’s exciting and very easy to be overzealous with your picking. I am guilty of this and thus, I make jam!
Most of the jam recipes I found required a LOT of sugar and that’s not really my thing. I searched for recipes that used agar agar and found that most used a fraction of the amount of sweetener. I went with honey has my sweetener but you can still use sugar or agave.
The amount of strawberries left were enough jam to fill a little more than one jar. I only had a pints worth of overripe strawberries.
Sampling the jam on a gingersnap cookie shaped like the state of Texas
Ingredients
1 pint overripe strawberries (1 FULL cup sliced/hulled)
1 large lemon (juiced and zested)
H20 to cover berries (1/2 – 1 cup)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup chopped mint (or more-whatever you’d like)
2 1/2 teaspoons agar (let this bloom like you would gelatin)
Add all your ingredients except the agar into a pot and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil uncovered and reduce for 10-15 mins or until your strawberries have begun to break down. Add the agar, stir it in well and let boil for another 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally.
You can ladle this into sterilized jars or unsterilized ones (these wont last as long but i doubt you’ll have the jam around too long anyway). So far I’ve had this with cookies, in oatmeal, on vanilla ice cream…. I enjoy the tang of lemon and the sweet of the berry in the recipe. Feel free to make changes and let me know if you like it!
Teddy