ChefSteps is a team of chefs, writers, and food lovers who develop recipes, techniques, and guides to help people cook better at home.

ChefSteps

Usually, here at ChefSteps, we reinvent. However, after a lot of testing, we found that when we want to make jam, the technique for making freezer jam printed on the instructions inside a box of Pomona Pectin is still the best. Let us show you. Jam should be bright. Jam should be the color of the fruit from which it was made. Jam should taste like the season of that fruit. So why is most jam on the store shelves dull in color and bland in flavor? It’s because the technique for making jam—mashing fruit with lots of extra sugar and macerating it, then cooking it down until you can pack it into jars to can—was invented before freezers became common. If you wanted to preserve the peak flavors of summer in fruit, you would freeze it. Making jam seems pretty elaborate, right? You have to find peak-of-season fruit, some pectin, and the pot. (Some guides tell you that you need a copper one for the best jam.) Add more sugar to that fruit to make sure you preserve it. Don’t forget about some acid. Do you have a good recipe? Did you let the fruit macerate overnight for the best effect? You need to sterilize jars, then fill that giant pot with hot water ready to boil. Are those jars sealed after you canned them? Be sure. 
 
Whew. No wonder making jam seems mystifying. Most people reach for a jar on the grocery store shelf instead of making it themselves. 
 
If you are intimidated by the process of making a big batch of jam, you could make freezer jam. We think this is a better method than cooking the hell out of your fruit. It’s made with fresh fruit, some sugar, and a box of Pomona’s Universal Pectin created for freezer jam. The colors of freezer jam stay brighter than traditional methods and the flavors sing more clearly. Making freezer jam is so easy that you can do small batches—a few 8-ounce jars—instead of feeling like you need to process bushels of fruit. Look, they know what they are doing. And now you can too.