easy
Blueberry Maple Jam – Canning What You Grow
The pectin calculator can be found here
Recipe:
Ingredients:
4 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen
1 cup maple syrup
5 tablespoons Ball® RealFruit™ Low or No-Sugar Needed Pectin
1 ½ cups of brown sugar
3 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
Yields 6 half-pint jars
Method:
Prepare hot water bath, jars, rings and lids.
Combine blueberries with maple syrup and lemon juice in a non-reactive pot. Mash gently. Gradually stir in Ball® RealFruit™ Pectin. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down, over high heat, stirring constantly.
Add brown sugar. Return mixture to a full rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary.
Test and check set.
Ladle hot jam into hot jars, one at a time, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe rims. Center lids on jars. Apply bands and adjust to fingertip tight.
Place filled jars in canner, ensuring jars are covered by 1 to 2 inches of water. Place lid on canner. Bring water to gentle, steady boil.
Process jars for 10 minutes, adjusting for altitute. Turn off heat, remove lid and let jars stand for 5 minutes.
Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours.
Spelt Flour Strawberry Muffins
This Saturday Joey & I took our niece, Sara, strawberry picking. It was her first time and she had a good time. It probably also helps she loves strawberries, and Joey…and me of course. We ended up with 30 lbs, and sent about 7 lbs home with Sara. After deciding to freeze what we couldn’t eat, we made jam and then I was wanting to do some baking with them.
After a bit of thinking I settled on strawberry muffins. I like using whole spelt flour as opposed to something like whole wheat. The addition of the oat flour and coconut flour give these muffins a nice texture. I also learned, after my muffins came out looking a little deflated, that my baking powder was almost a year expired! So check the expiration date on your baking powder. The best part about these is you can make them vegan with using any non-dairy milk.
What you need:
- 2 cups spelt flour
- 1/2 cup coconut flour, if you don’t have this you could use more oat flour
- 1/2 cup oat flour (you can make this in your food processor with oats)
- pinch of salt
- 5 tsps baking powder
- 3/4 to 1 cup sugar
- 1.5 cups milk or non-dairy substitute like soy milk or almond milk
- 1/2 cup oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1.5 cups diced strawberries
This recipe yields 24 muffins, filled 2/3 full. You could easily halve it.
Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a larger bowl, set aside. Mix wet ingredients well in separate bowl. Slowly combine wet to dry, mix until just combined. Fold in strawberries. Pour into muffin tins to about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 minutes. You will know they are done when they are golden brown and spring back when touched lightly.
Hopefully your baking soda isn’t expired and they done “fall”. They are still tasty though. These are good alone or with a little butter. Enjoy!
The Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener 