Category Archives: Jams and Jellies

Tips for Gifting your Home-Canned Goodies

Giving home-preserved gifts adds a personal touch, but you do take on the added responsibility of vouching for the safety of the foods you give. As tempting as it may be to impress your recipients with a brand new, never-before-tasted canned creation, your first measure of safety is to use tested recommendations from reliable sources. Instead of experimenting with recipes, get creative with the way you package your home-preserved gifts.

If you use an attractive canning jar of a unique size (12 oz., for example) and you can’t find canning recommendations for that size jar, be sure to use the next biggest size jar that does have canning recommendations (so in the example of the 12 oz. jar, follow the process time listed for pint size jars). Otherwise the product might be under-processed and risk spoilage or causing sickness. Also, be aware that there are lovely jars out in the market place that are NOT recommended for canning. Some jars are intended for other uses, and even if they look like canning jars they may not be tempered to withstand the intense heat of canning or temperature changes that occur in taking jars in and out of canners. (These jars might work well to gift beautiful dried fruits, however!) Our canning recommendations are for use with Mason-type home-canning jars and two-piece lid systems.

Decorative labels are available from jar manufacturers and other companies. As you label your precious products, remember to include the creation date, and consider telling your recipient how long the product will stay “good” (usually one year for best quality with most home-canned foods). If you have room, also include the ingredients (especially if the product contains allergens) and storage instructions like “Store in a cool, dry place and refrigerate after opening.”

If you didn’t already do your canning for gift-giving, then here are a few festive ideas using seasonal ingredients:

Spiced Apple Rings, Apple Butter, Sweet Apple Relish

Citrus Marmalade

Chutneys

Cranberry Sauce, Cranberry Marmalade, Cranberry Conserve

Flavored Vinegars

There are also a few popular holiday gifts that are NOT recommended for home-canning. Don’t risk the health of your loved ones — try the alternative suggestions instead:

Herbed Oil Infusions (try Flavored Vinegar instead –you don’t even need to can it!)

Canned Breads (instead, package dry ingredients and make a tag with baking instructions)

Canned Chocolate/Fudge Sauce (make this Freezer Chocolate Fudge Sauce instead)

This entry was inspired by Resources for Home Food Preservation Gifts by Brian A. Nummer. For more canning-related gift ideas, see Looking for a Gift that Keeps Giving? Try a Dehydrator! and Holiday Gifts for the Home Food Preserver .

 

Going Nutty Over Advice for Preserving Nutmeats?

This time of year, you might be eager to find the best way to make your bounty of pecans, almonds, chestnuts, walnuts or peanuts last through the holiday season and beyond. While canning is a go-to for preserving, let’s not forget that some foods don’t fare so well as a canned product. USDA has never had a home canning recommendation for canning a pack of only nut meats, and the NCHFP website only has a recommendation for canning green peanuts from past work at the University of Georgia.

A previously (and no longer) recommended canning process for “canning” dry nutmeats found in So Easy to Preserve from the University of Georgia is no longer included in the new edition of the book. It was actually just a way to create a vacuum-sealed jar and there was no documentation for any microbial sterilization that might have been taking place. Questions about the risk (even if a low risk) of some bacterial growth if condensation of moisture occurred inside the jars from canning in boiling water led to re-consideration of this advice for sealing jars. Compared to when this was first published years ago, now there are other ways to vacuum pack dry, shelled nut meats at home without heating in boiling water.

Nuts tend to store very well by proper drying and storing in air-tight containers in a cool location. Refrigerated (at 32-45°F) nuts will maintain quality for one year and frozen (at 0°F) nuts will maintain quality for 1, 2, or even 3 years depending on the type of nut. See this publication from the University of California for more specific information about harvesting and storing different types of nuts.

While we know of no tested recommendations for canning pecan pie filling, another common request, you can easily make your pecan pies as usual, cool rapidly, and then freeze briefly before packaging for long term freezer storage (pies will be easier to wrap after freezing). Stored at 0°F, frozen pecan pies are expected to last 3-4 months.

Conserves are a delicious way to use up smaller quantities of nuts. By definition, conserves are jam-like products that contain nuts, raisins, and/or coconut. These conserve recipes allow you to choose your preferred nut type: Apple Conserve, Apricot-Orange Conserve, Cranberry Conserve, Damson Plum- Orange Conserve, Grape Conserve, and Plum Conserve.

Are you wondering why it’s ok to can nuts in conserves but not by themselves? The recommendation we withdrew was just one procedure for canning a jar of all nutmeats in a dry pack. There is nothing wrong with canning foods with nuts in them, if tested that way. Other recommendations (like conserves) were developed with a called for amount of nuts along with other ingredients which influence the characteristics of the final product. Let’s consider Apple Conserve, for example: Apples are an acid food and the lemon juice is a strong acid; if other ingredient proportions are kept as expected, the final product should remain acid enough for boiling water canning. Furthermore, in this conserve, the pectin and sugar combine with this acid and fruit to make a gel, which reduces the water activity of the final product. These characteristics make a difference in what the process recommendation should be, and were taken into consideration for that recipe when a canning process was determined.

A Particular Pear to Bear in Mind

 

Anjou, Asian, Bartlett, Bosc, Concorde…all these types of pear and more are typically available across the U.S. from August through early springtime, thanks largely to orchards in Oregon and Washington. As those pomaceous fruits begin ripening in your home kitchen, you might be tempted to preserve some for later. But did you know that not all pears are created equal, and that there’s a particular type of pear to be aware of before canning?

We’re talking about those pears that are sometimes mistaken for apples – those petite, round, crisp Asian pears.

Asian pears are generally slightly smaller and rounder than other varieties, and are distinctly crisp in texture. There are more than ten varieties of Asian pear and some are classified as low-acid for canning purposes. So, before boiling water canning, Asian pears must have a strong acid (e.g. lemon juice) added to them in order to increase the acidity enough to prevent the growth of botulism-causing bacteria. The exact amount recommended is 1 Tablespoon bottled lemon juice per pint jar (2 Tablespoons per quart). Complete canning recommendations for Asian Pears, Halved or Sliced also include soaking pears in an ascorbic acid solution to prevent discoloration and preparing a covering liquid of a syrup, juice, or water. (Aside from the addition of bottled lemon juice, the recommendation is very similar to canning Pears, halved.)

You could also wash, peel, core, and cut into ½-inch slices then dry until pliable, but not sticky. If you fold a piece in half, it should not stick to itself.

Due to the relatively large amount of vinegar in the recipes, it’s fine to use Asian Pears in Pear Pickles and Pear Relish or even this unique recipe for Chayote and Pear Relish. Also, Pear-Apple Jam has enough bottled lemon juice that you could use Asian pears if you are willing to try a jam that may have a bit of a crunch to it.

However, Asian pears are NOT recommended for use in Pear Preserves. In addition to the potential for a safety concern due to pH, the crisper fruits might not produce the textural quality you are going for in typical preserves. So stick with one of the thousands of other varieties of pear out there for preserves!

Want to Make Sweet Spreads, but Don’t Want to Add Sugar?

Classic jams and jellies are typically sugary sweetened spreads, but we know that fruits have enough natural sugars to make them taste sweet even without adding table sugar. But even with a satisfactorily sweet flavor, how do you get the ideal jellied consistency of traditional jams and jellies without adding sugar? In addition to the many recipes for sugar-added jams and jellies, you have plenty of options for making (and canning) sweet spreads without added sugar.

So do you think it’s as easy as grabbing a box of regular pectin from the store shelf and just leaving out the sugar from one of the recipes that comes with it? Well, if you do that, then you’ll likely end up with a drippy, runny product because regular pectin depends on the addition of sugar to form the gel structure that makes a spreadable jellied texture.

Instead of making a mess, try a tested recipe using one of these four methods for making no-sugar-added jams and jellies. Or, try each of these methods and repeat the one you like best — you may want to experiment a while before finding your favorite final product.

Method One: Use Specially Modified Pectin. These products can be found in the canning section on store shelves, with label description such as “light” or “no sugar needed”. Follow the recipes included in the packaging, which often present options for using less sugar, no sugar, or alternative sweeteners like fruit juice or honey. Recipe directions also include a canning process so that the product can be stored at room temp.

Method Two: Use Regular Pectin With Special Recipes. You might come across a tested recipe that calls for regular pectin with no added sugar, but please note that there is still a small amount of sugar already in the pectin product itself. These recipes typically call for the addition of a sugar substitute, so be aware that flavor changes may occur in the sugar alternatives from the heat of cooking and canning, as well as from storage. For example, aspartame may lose its sweet flavor within 3 to 4 weeks.

Method Three: Long Boil. Simply boil down fruit pulp until it reaches a spreadable consistency. The final product is not technically jellied because it will not have a pectin gel. However, the texture will be thick and spreadable. While boiling the fruit, you may add a small amount of sugar or sugar substitute to taste for extra sweetness if you wish. An example of a long boil method for making a fruit spread is Peach-Pineapple Spread (which also works with nectarines, apricots, and/or plums). Expect this method to require a slightly longer boiling water bath process time than full sugar jams and jellies, as more heat is needed to make up for the lack of the preserving effect of the sugar as well as the pectin gel structure binding up water.

Method Four: Use Gelatin. For refrigerator storage only, gelatin is effective in making spreads which call for fruit juice to flavor and sweeten. Sugar substitutes can also be added, if desired. Try this Refrigerated Apple Spread or Refrigerated Grape Spread. Be sure to use these recipes within 4 weeks.