Putting Food By - Janet Greene [135]
Freezer jams and jellies can be made with regular powdered or liquid pectin or with so-called freezer-jam pectin, which is simpler to use and requires less added sugar. The folders that come with these products have a number of good jams and jellies; and the proportions have been worked out after much testing. We recommend them.
Failures and What to Do
In theory, we’d all have perfect jellies, jams, marmalades, preserves, conserves, and fruit butters if we used prime ingredients, if we measured carefully, and if we followed procedures conscientiously. But things can go wrong, even when we mean to be careful. Therefore, here is a rundown of the symptoms and causes of common failures, listed now (rather than at the end of all the recipes, as other publications do), so you can keep them in mind as you work along.
We’ll start by saying that you shouldn’t stash away any of these preserving kettle products until they have stood handy by for 24 hours. Aside from allowing you a wonderful gloat, this day of grace before storing them will let you check the seals in time to do them over again if you find any poor ones.
Now for the problems that can be dealt with safely—provided that the seal is intact, and that there is no mold or fermentation in the contents.
Too stiff, tough. Too much pectin in proportion, or cooking no-added-pectin products too long; sliced citrus rinds in marmalades not precooked before added to syrup. Nothing can be done for pectin-added things, and it’s not feasible to do the others over with more liquid. They’re still probably tastier than store-bought.
Too-soft jelly. Tilt the containers: if you can see the contents shift, the jelly is too soft. This condition can be caused by cooking too long (as when the batch was too big and so was boiled beyond the ideal time limit); or by cooking too slowly; or by too much sugar; or by too little sugar or pectin or acid; or by not cooking long enough. Sometimes you can salvage such jelly by cooking it over; not always—but it’s worth a try. Work with only 4 cups of jelly at one time:
Without added pectin: bring 4 cups of the jelly to boiling and boil it hard for 2 minutes, then test it for signs of gelling. Let it try to sheet from a cold spoon, or (having removed the kettle from heat) chill a dab of it; if it shows signs of improving, boil a minute or so longer until it tests done. Then take it off the heat, skim, pour into hot sterilized containers, and seal. (On the other hand, if the jelly reaches a temperature of 225 F/107 C and still refuses to set, don’t just keep cooking it, for you will only ruin it. Instead, save it as a glaze for roasted or barbecued meats or as a pancake or dessert syrup.)
With added powdered pectin: for each 4-cup batch of jelly, measure 4 teaspoons of powdered pectin and ¼ cup water into the bottom of the kettle; heat the pectin and water to boiling, stirring to keep it from scorching. Add the jelly and ¼ cup of sugar, bring quickly to a full rolling boil for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, skim, pour into hot sterilized containers, and seal.
With added liquid pectin: bring 4 cups of jelly to a boil quickly. Immediately stir in 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, ¾ cup of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of liquid pectin. Bring it back to a full rolling boil, and boil it hard for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove the kettle from heat, skim, pour into hot sterilized containers, and seal.
Runny jam. Jam isn’t supposed to be as firm as jelly, so if it’s only a little bit looser than you’d like it to be, don’t bother to remake it. If it’s really thin, though, try one of the remedies for too-soft jelly. If a test batch won’t turn out right, make sure all the seals are intact and that storage is good—cool, dark, and dry—and mark the remaining jars to be used as a sweet topping for ice creams, puddings, pancakes, etc.
Runny conserves and butters. Often simply cooking them over again will help; try a small batch. Is your storage too warm?
“Weeping” jelly. This is the partial separation of liquid