Cherry Berry Jam

Tis the season; strawberry and cherry season that is. With which comes jam making. All types of delicious memories come flooding back to me; however all memories aren't super sweet but life goes on. Cooking is therapy; and my friends sure appreciate the jars and jars and jars of jam that contribute to helping my heart heal.

Usually I buy the huge bag of pitted cherries from Costco but since NoFrills had them $1.79/lbs I got to work with my handy cherry pitter. I would highly reccommend this kitchen tool, it can be used for olives as well. It was a great gift; thanks papa-too.

As berries were inseason and cheap I would buy and freeze them until I was ready for jam making; there's a helpful tip! Buy bulk when inseason!

I got all my ingredients out; flavourings of lime, orange, and vanilla.

I got everything ready and waited for Aubrey to arrive home from strawberry picking with her nana, auntie and cousins. 

This little man was too tired to go so we stayed home.

Once home we washed and hulled two baskets of freshly picked strawberries.

Added that to the already prepared fruit.

At this point I added the pectin and followed the cooking instructions on the package.

I don't crush my fruit as the box calls for I instead use my potato masher while it's boiling. I like my jam to be a chunkier looser jam.

I like to let the fruit shine so I use "no sugar needed" pectin. I do add some sugar but not enough to thicken the jam like with the regular pectin. I have tried to use the regular pectin in the past and failed!

Here's my tried tested and true recipe. 

I do this recipe by taste so given the years berries the amount of sugar could change.

Let the canning begin!

Cherry berry jam with vanilla and lime.

By the end of the day I had already given away 11 jars...way more fun to share!

Now I just need to make things to put the jam on. Freshly baked biscuits; yes please!