Freezer Jam

New Kitchen! New cozy town house! New recipes and blog posts! The beloved Kitchenaid mixer is on the counter in its designated spot and biscuits have been made, along with strawberry freezer jam and home made vanilla bean ice cream. I forgot to take pictures of the biscuits, which were phenomenal by the way, so we'll get the blog party started with the amazing strawberry jam my friend Nicole and I made yesterday.

Little Jars of Strawberry Freezer Jam

Doesn't it look great? Strawberries are ripe and delicious out here in the bay area, and on sale at the farmer's market. I picked up a huge flat of berries (enough to make four (or more?) batches of jam) for about $10, and strong-armed my friend Nicole into making jam with me. It's easy, but it's so much more fun to do it with a friend. 

Prepping the Berries: Washing and Stemming

We washed and stemmed the strawberries, gave them a rough chop and threw them in the food processor. For one batch of jam, you need two cups of pureed strawberries, which I think is about one medium package of whole berries.

Stemmed Berries

The Big Red Box of Berries. 12 Dry Pints for $10.

Hot and Clean Jars Drying on the Counter

Strawberry Freezer Jam 

(Recipe adapted from Sure Jell Box Recipe)

Here's What You Need:

2 Cups Pureed Strawberries (You can use a blender or a food processor)

4 Cups Sugar

1 Package Sure Jell Pectin (Regular)

3/4 Cup Water

6 8-oz. Mason Jars

Pouring the Jam into the Jars (Photo by Nicole)

Here's What You Do:

1. Prep the berries: Wash, Stem, Chop, Puree. Measure out exactly two cups of puree into a medium-large bowl. 

2. Mix in the sugar. (I do it by hand.) Stir until sugar is incorporated, and then let stand for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

3. Bring pectin and water to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute, then remove from heat. 

4. After sugar/berry mixture has had 10 minutes to cure, add the pectin water. Stir for about 3 minutes until all the sugar is dissolved and it basically looks like runny jam. 

5. Pour into your mason jars. Make sure to leave about 1/2" at the top for the jam to expand in the freezer.

Voila! The whole process takes about 30 minutes, and you have freezer jam for the rest of the year. 

This jam is perfect on biscuits & toasts, or in homemade strawberry ice cream, or drizzled on top of vanilla ice cream for a delicious extra treat.

Rose Cake

I know you've seen this before, but...

maybe you haven't seen it quite like this: Rose Cake

In honor of having some really beautiful women over to my house this evening, I made a rose cake (like the whirly-gig cake, only better I think). This is strawberry with strawberry filling (homemade) and bourbon vanilla buttercream frosting. What do you think? 

Chomp.

My Little Strawwwwbery!

This post is brought to you by the lovely and talented Nicole. If you're alive and you know where a grocery store is, you've probably realized that strawberries are craaaazy in season.  And having so many strawberries requires an easy way to make a whole bunch of them into something awesome. I give you: the do-it-yourself chocolate covered strawberry:

I have to apologize to Nicole at this point -- I took all of the pictures of the process and final product with a vintage camera app that doesn't really do justice to how pretty (and delicious!) her chocolate covered strawberries are.  Just imagine a perfectly ripe strawberry wrapped in Guittard Chocolate. 

[FYI, did you know that Guittard provides the chocolate for Sees Candies? Nicole says Sees acutally covers their chocolate truffles with Guittard chocolate! Wikipedia says it's true, so I'm going to believe. 

It's so good. I mean, it's so good.]

Shout Out to My Mom, Part I

Last week my cute mom came out for a little visit and we did all things delicious during her stay, including a trip to the local farmer's market, where we couldn't resist picking up a small flat of strawberries. And they smelled so good. I mean, if smell-0-vision had ever made it past the dream phase, I would be permanently tuned in to fresh strawberry -- they smelled that good.

And since we had more strawberries than we could hope to eat in a lifetime, my mom showed me how to make strawberry freezer jam. I'm converted. It was really easy and it's SO GOOD.