Raspberry Jam & Why I Love Pomona Pectin

This is the first year that my raspberry bushes have produced berries.  Well at least more than just a handful of berries.  I picked them a couple of times last week and decided to make raspberry jam.  When I mashed the raspberries, I had just less than three cups.  Now if I was using the common conventional pectin product that would be a big problem.  It is vital that the correct amount of fruit and sugar be used or you can expect a disaster.  Truthfully I end up with a disaster even when I follow the recipe exactly.  That is the first reason that I love Pomona pectin.  I have never had my jam or jelly not gel properly.

 

 

Back to my nearly three cups of mashed raspberries and reason number two…  The Pomona recipes are very easy to halve or even double.  I used my three cups of berries and decreased the other items in proportion.

 

The final reason is that the amount of sugar used is flexible.  The conventional pectin recipe calls for three cups of mashed berries and 5 ¼ cups of sugar(!!).  I always tasted more sugar than fruit.  With the Pomona recipe I only used ¾ cup of sugar.  When the jam was done I could taste the raspberries.  I could even have used honey rather than the sugar.  Of course less sugar also means that the jam is cheaper to make.  I suppose the reason just keep adding up.

 

Pomona Pectin is not sold in stores where I live, but it is available on Amazon.  The price seems high, but recipes only use one to two teaspoons rather than an entire package.  I loved it so much that I ordered it in bulk from the Pomona website.