Pear Jam with Honey
For Christmas, Joe got me a canning kit. During the weeks leading up to the present opening, we constantly messed with each other. I somehow just knew that the big huge box was a canning kit. I tried to get him to tell me it was one and he insisted it was a tripod which was a ridiculous cover. If you have ever purchased a tripod or a canning kit, you know the size differences in the boxes! I of course, never believed these tripod claims for one moment.
Thankfully I was right in my assumption that it was a canning kit and I have finally done it! I have finally made a proper jam.
I used Pomona’s Universal Pectin because the amount of sugar in jam recipes makes me uneasy. 6 cups of sugar, are you serious?
My dear friend Pam gave me a box of Pomona’s and I decided to use a recipe from inside the box because I didn’t want to test fate and mess with anything while I am still learning all the wonderful joys of canning your own food.
Pear Jam with Honey
This pear honey jam is low in sugar and made with pomona's pectin.
Ingredients
Calcium Water
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp calcium powder
Jam
- 4 cups pears, peeled, cored and mashed
- 3/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup lemon or lime juice
- 3 tsp pectin powder
- 4 tsp calcium water
Instructions
Calcium water
- Mix water and calcium powder together.
- Store in a sealed jar in the refrigerator and shake before each use.
- Will keep for a few months sealed tightly.
Jam
- Peel and core pears.
- Mash using a potato masher or large fork.
- Stir mashed fruit, lemon or lime juice and calcium water into a medium sized pot.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the pectin powder and honey.
- Bring fruit mixture to a boil and add the honey-pectin mixture.
- Stir for 1-2 minutes and then return to a boil.
- Once boiling, remove from heat Sanitize jars, lids and rings.
- Fill jars to 1/4" of top, clean rims and carefully attach lid and twist rings on.
- Put filled jars into a boiling pot of water and process for 10 minutes.
- Add an extra minute for every 1000 ft above sea level.
- Remove from water and let cool. Lids should be "sucked" down.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 292Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 10mgCarbohydrates: 79gFiber: 5gSugar: 67gProtein: 1g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate. You may want to spot check this information.
Congratulations!! Welcome to the wonderful world of canning, you will NEVER be the same! I am extremely proud of you. We will have so much fun berry picking this year, and then canning it! Wow that was a lot of ! lol.
As for the Gerd/Acid Reflux, it is a tough battle. I will still be here for you ever step of the way, promise! It is really hard, as someone with a food centered life, to have to learn to live this way, and a lot of the time I am bad. And then of course I pay for it later.
Give panko chicken and brown rice a try for like 2-3 weeks straight, you will notice a HUGE difference. I swear by it when I need to get back in check!
I love you and your ! marks! Thank you for the constant love about GERD. WE MUST go berry pinking this summer again. We didn’t last summer and it made me really sad! I will give that chicken/rice a shot. I was feeling REALLY GOOD before the weekend hit and I ate like an idiot thinking it was okay. I guess I was kind of testing myself…
I love you too!!!
And yes!!! We MUST MUST MUST go berry picking again!! It made me sad too. I pick strawberries where we went in Ancram, Blackberries in Redhook at Greigs, and Raspberries as a secret location I’m not telling the internet about. But I’ll tell you.
AND we need a canning day! And engagement session!! We have a lot to do lol
I am no unware of canning things but it sounds fun and great way to make unique flavored jams. I am sorry about your tummy again 🙁 hope you feel better! pear jam sounds delish with a slice of rustic bread right now
Really beautiful pictures. And I really love the idea of pear and honey. I have never done any kind of canning. Need to at some point. The look of those little jars makes me crave some of my own jams stashed away for special days.
Aww, I hope you`ll feel better again soon! & Ooo, canning! I`ve always wanted to try! This jam looks good.
What is the calcium water for in this recipe is it optional found this on pintrest and it sounds great but not sure why the calcium is needed?
The calcium water in this recipe is from a box of Pomona’s Pectin — Low Sugar/Sugar Free Pectin (found here:http://www.pomonapectin.com) I wouldn’t recommend making this jam without it as the recipe comes from a card within the box of pomonas pectin.
Amanda, the calcium is what sets the pectin. Pomona’s pectin does not require sugar to set, unlike conventional pectins. (Even the “no-sugar-needed” regular pectin, like Sure-Jell or Ball, comes with some sugar of its own to make it work, usually in the form of dextrose.) You CANNOT make a Pomona’s jam without the calcium, it just won’t set, but it comes in the box so no worries. IMO Pomona’s is is THE best pectin on the market, for both beginners and experienced jammers, and well worth seeking out.
Sorry to hear about the GI problems, Samantha. I’m saddled with my own wonky innards so I sympathize, and I hope you’re doing better. By the way, I’m a bit unorthodox with Pomona’s procedures, especially those using honey or maple syrup because it’s a pain to mix in the pectin without lumps and then scrape that into the pot of boiling fruit while stirring quickly so you don’t get clumps unless you have three hands. I also like to macerate my fruit with at least some of the sweetener overnight to get it to release its juices. So I stir the pectin into a few tablespoons of sugar and slowly stir that to the boiling hot sweetened fruit. I’ve never had a problem with set unless you count setting TOO firm; I’ve noticed that Pomona’s tends to set very solid if you go by their measurements, so I usually cut them back by 1/3 to 1/2.
It’s a LOT easier to mash pears, unless they’re ripe almost to the point of rotten, if you cook them with 1/4-1/2C water for a little while first. After cooking the pears, honey (I started with 1/2C of a strong-flavored local honey), lemon juice and 1/4C water until they were not quite tender, which actually took more like 10 minutes, I took the stick blender to it and pureed about 2/3 of it so I’d have pear bits in a smooth base (I had diced my pears very small, but I didn’t care for the potato-masher’ed texture). Then I added 3 tsp calcium water and whisked in *2* tsp Pomona’s Pectin mixed into 2 Tb sugar. Dropped some on a cold saucer to taste and check set; it did need the other 1/4C honey, and I also added a teaspoon of grated lemon zest, a pinch of sea salt, and a nice big pinch of freshly grated nutmeg, since I personally found it a wee bit flat. (The recipes in the Pomona’s insert are just “bases” so they tend to be somewhat bland; you’re encouraged to experiment with flavors.) I got 5 half-pints, although one is a tad scant so I’ll use that one first. I hope yours came out as well.
Mari, you are just awesome for this amazing comment. Thanks for the tips. I think I will try to macerate the fruit next time. and you are so right, you need 3 hands to try and get the lumps out. I do the best I can. I really love Pomona’s and I love that you are encouraged to experiment with flavors.
Thank you and you’re welcome! I wanted to pass on to you a FANTASTIC resource on another blog called Northwest Edibles: the “Signature Jam Flavor Maker Chart” at http://www.nwedible.com/2012/08/create-your-own-signature-jam-by-mixing-and-matching-flavors.html has been a godsend in my jamming adventures! I don’t often use the basic jam recipe next to the chart because I prefer the fresher flavors of the Pomona-set products, but the chart of compatible flavors has been a joy to use. My favorites from this summer have been Blackberry Jam with Rosewater and Vanilla, Five Spice Pear Jam (Chinese five spice powder), Apple Cider Jelly with Maple Syrup and Rosemary, and Honey Bourbon Peach Butter. I use the chart for all kinds of fruit cookery, not just jams – for instance I made a pear upside-down cake, precooking the pears with amaretto and slivered almonds and flavoring the cake batter with cardamom, heavenly! Canning fruit in extra-light syrups got a lot more interesting too, since I would make a large batch of simple syrup and then take out a pint of syrup (on average, enough syrup for six pint jars of sliced fruit) to “flavor up” using the chart for inspiration. I encourage you and your readers to stop by and download it, I think you’ll have a lot of fun!
whoa! Just printed that chart out to place on the fridge. That is a really great resource. I’ll share it with everyone (who might not read these comments) the next time I can and post about it. That Honey Bourbon Peach Butter sounds just fabulous and RIGHT up my alley.
So you use these flavor combinations and ignore the instructions on the left and work with pomona’s instructions? Did I get that right?
Exactly right! I do suggest making the test batches as described in the Pomona’s pamphlet when possible – obviously for things like fruit butters it’s not – and start out conservatively because you can always add more but once in, you can’t take it out!
I did the peach butter in my slow cooker, just filled the 4-quart crock with peeled, chunked peaches, 2 mini bottles of bourbon (next time I make it I’ll use a better bourbon, like Maker’s Mark or Knob Creek), juice of one lemon and a big pinch of sea salt. I always add a little salt when jamming, it balances the sweetness and makes the fruit taste fruitier. I propped the lid open with a couple of chopsticks laid across the crock and let it cook overnight. Next day I blitzed it with a stick blender and continued to cook it down until it reached fruit-butter consistency, at which time I added locally-produced wildflower honey to taste. Had I added the honey at the beginning it might have been too sweet at the end. Jar up with a 1/4″ headspace, remove bubbles with a chopstick, and BWB 10 minutes for half-pints at sea level. IMO making fruit butters on the stovetop is a nightmare, the slow cooker or the oven is the way to go!
Side note, since peach butter uses a LOT of peaches: If you have access to a pick-your-own peach orchard in season, ask about a discounted rate for “drops” – at the orchard where I got my peaches last summer, there were so many near-perfect peaches on the ground that I was able to fill a 5-gallon bucket in about half an hour, and at a 66% discount I was more than happy to cut away a few little bruises. That goes for most tree fruits – if you’re just going to mash/chop/slice it up and can it, why pay full price? The site http://www.pickyourown.org/ is a HUGE help for finding “U-Pick” fruits and veggies. Oh, and the _serrated_ peeler from Zyliss, OXO, or Messermeister peels thin-skinned fruits like peaches, plums, nectarines, and even tomatoes like a dream, if the blanching method isn’t cooperating or you just have a few to do.
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Thanks for your post! I just made a batch and it’s delicious. For the last little bit, about a pint, I simmered the jam a bit longer with a sprig rosemary… holy moly! Yum!
Whoa. Rosemary is my most favorite herb. I bet it is an amazing addition. Great share! Thank you. 🙂