Watermelon Jam

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the art of canning?  It's something I just started doing last fall and after the first batch of salsa I made and canned I was hooked!  At Christmas I canned strawberry jam that I gave as gifts and everyone loved them.  I also tried my hand at jalapeno jelly (not a success like strawberry jam) and this weekend gave it a whirl at watermelon jam.  Watermelon jam?  Yes you read correctly.  I found a really easy to follow receipe on pinterest posted from Blondies Cakes website.  Find the site and the receipe here:  http://blondiescakes.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-09-12T21%3A01%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=5

Of course step one is to buy a watermelon.  Isn't it a lovely watermelon? 

Then of course you want to wash and sterlize your canning jars.  I always include bands in my washing and sterlizing.  A lot of people say you don't need to do this but I just believe in better safe than sorry.  I picked up the tiny 4 oz jars for the watermelon jam.  Aren't they adorable?

I won't go into all the details on how much of anything you need since you can click on link above to get all the details.  Instead I'll let you know of a couple of tweeks I made and a trick or two I used. 

I went from puree to cooking on the stove in just a few easy steps and my kitchen smelled like summer fun.  The aromas took me back to family summer BBQ's when I was a little girl and we'd run around all day long playing, chasing ducks (poor ducks) and riding our bikes trying to do daredevil stunts.  We'd come in for a break and there was always a cold watermelon cut up for us to munch on.  Aww. . .simpler times.

While the jam is cooking I've got a spoon sitting in a glass of ice water (kind of hard to see but it's behind the pot) and I use this spoon to test the consistency of the jam.  When it's boiled long enough or to the temperature needed I put a little jam on the spoon and let it cool.  My batch was still too runny for my liking so I added a little more pectin then the receipe called for.  This is after all watermelon jam and not jelly.  Another trick to make note of if I reserve about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the sugar it calls for and mix it with my pectin.  This may be something taught to me by my grandma or something I picked up off the Ball canning site.  Not sure I just know I do it.

Jars are filled and ready for their bath.  The jam turned out to be a rather large batch and I ran out of the cute tiny jars so I had to use some of my larger jam jars in order to finish canning.  No worries because I've got a nephew that loves watermelon so he'll devour the large jar all on his own.  Make sure you wipe rims of jars real good before you seal them and put in the water bath.

 Into the bath they go!  If you don't already have a jar lifter you really should invest the couple of dollars it'll take to purchase one.  I don't know how you'd do this without one.  Ouch!  After the appropriate time in the bath I take them out and put on the counter on a towel to cool.  You can hear them popping with delight for awhile. I always go back and wipe jars, bands and top of lids clean otherwise they end up with an almost chaulk like finish to them.  Could be that I have some hard water.

The finished product!  I couldn't be happier with my lovely watermelon jam jars.  Let me know how yours turn out or if you've got some canning tips to share.

Until next time,

Newman