Can I use this recipe for my first foray into canning? Can I still include the butter? Is it necessary to add powdered fruit pectin?
Recipe question for:
My Mother's Strawberry Jam
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For water bath processing, bring a large pot of water to a boil (if you aren't using a canning kettle with wire insert, place something on the bottom of the pot so that when you insert the jars they don't touch the bottom of the pot -- direct heat contact can cause them to break. A friend has tied together a bunch of the canning jar rings and uses them at the bottom of the pot). Fill your jars, carefully wipe clean the rims, screw on tops, place in boiling water (the water should cover the jars by at least one inch) and boil for 10 minutes. Remove from water and place on a dish towel to cool (dish towel helps keep a cold counter from "shocking" the hot glass and causing it to break). Soon you should hear little pings -- this is a good noise that occurs as the jam cools and the seal happens. When thoroughly cooled (some say allow 24 hours), press up and down on the lid (we call this the "trampoline test") -- there should be no give. Those with no give are good seals; if any spring back like a trampoline you have a bad seal. A bad seal simply means that it can't be stored in the cupboard but needs to be in the fridge -- so enjoy those ones first. And, if after all the cooling you find that you didn't get a good jell, don't fuss, just consider this a wonderful strawberry sauce (think ice cream toppings; waffles...)
Again, good luck and happy canning!
The butter is a different thing altogether and where you may (emphasis on the MAY) run into trouble. My personal rule of thumb is that it is never worth the risk (that's me; others may feel differently, but I'd certainly want to know that anything "gifted" to me was an untested recipe! and would likely thank profusely and avoid). There are food labs around the country that will "test" a recipe for you -- the only way to know that a recipe is safe is to use a tested one (like those in the Ball Blue book or So Easy to Preserve, which was effectively our textbook -- it also includes the pectin level categories for various fruit). I agree with the comments about being careful about using recipes on the internet unless they indicate they are tested. If you go with pectin, the Sure-Jel folks also have a number of tested recipes on their website.
Good luck! Canning is fun and totally worth doing; and, like anything worth doing, it is worth knowing the do's and don'ts.
I use the Pick Your Own and Ball websited for reference quite a bit. Oh an in The Blue Chair Jam Book - she never uses pectin and she cans everything ...
it's fun, you will be hooked!