It seems I was a little confused about the timing for this month's post deadline. I totally thought we had to get things done last week, and I did. I made 12 jars of raspberry jam and a rockin' bottle of raspberry vodka. You can read all about it here.
When I put that jam on the shelf I felt confident there would be raspberry jam to last all year. Boy was I wrong. It has been a week and Youngest Daughter has already opened a second jar. I am going to need to make at least one more batch.
On to the strawberries. Having that additional week gave the local strawberries a chance to come in. The variety of strawberries grown in Washington is the BEST. I remember eating California strawberries that were grown on a lot down the street and picked a couple hours before they landed in my kitchen. They were good, but they do not have a thing on our Washington berries. SO good!
I picked up a 1/2 flat at the local Co-Op. No, I am not going to tell you what I paid for them. "Somewhere between Ouch and Boing." I wanted to try the no pectin recipe from the current Edible Seattle. I followed the recipe precisely. The first day I let the berries and sugar and water and lemons sit, then I warmed them, then they sit some more. The next morning began like this.
The recipe said to check the gel point after about 15 minutes of boiling. I did. Not even. I added more plates to the freezer. After about 10 minutes I checked again. Nope. 10 more minutes, still not close. I repeated this pattern for over an hour. In the end I was able to get a wee bit of thickening. I am going to assume the thickening happened not because of pectin, but because of reduction.
The recipe told me to expect 12 half-pint jars, I got 8. I am assuming that is because of reduction as well.
Out of the fridge it is a soft jam. Tastes great! I am not going to post the recipe because I do not want to break any copywrite rules and because it did not work. No reason to send you down that path.