Homemade Strawberry Jam

Well, it was raining on Saturday here in Los Angeles and Jessica needed jam to pair with a couple of her many baking creations. Since my pickling spices and mason jars have not arrived yet (!) I decided that I should help her out since I just picked up some cool old-fashioned German canning jars from the Heath Store in West Hollywood. We decided on strawberry jam from the "Domestic Goddess" cookbook whose ingredients included:

3 1/2 cups strawberries

2 1/2 cups sugar (lots)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Given that neither I nor Jessica have ever water-bath processed anything for canning, we decided that I should only process one jar and store the other one in the refrigerator in case the processed one does not seal properly. The water-bath processing time for this jam was only 10 minutes so the jars needed to be sterilized in the canner before filling.

The filled jar was then boiled for 10 minutes, in theory, to make an airtight seal that creates a vacuum in the jar via increased pressure.

However, these German jars are not like mason jars whose lids line up perfectly and simply screw on. You have to manually place the rubber seal and hope it's centered. If not, you won't get an airtight seal and that means it is not shelf stable. I guess we'll find out if it sealed properly when it comes time to use it! For those wondering...finding out does involve seeing if we get sick from eating it, but rather the lid will fall off easily and won't stick on it's own (so don't worry).

Homemade strawberry jam would go perfect on a brioche grilled cheese such as found here.