Jelly Honey: Sugar Free Jam

Sugar Free Jam Biography

There is nothing quite like homemade jam. It seems to taste so much more like the fruit it came from than jams you buy at the store. However, it’s no secret that jam is mostly sugar, and in fact, jam is one of those things that is tricky to make sugar-free. This is because it is sugar that gives jam its characteristic mouth feel, and also because it acts as a preservative.

The first thing I tried was the simple route: I just added some water and artificial sweetener.and boiled them down, hoping that the natural pectin would be enough. This produced a spreadable puree with the blackberries, but it was very concentrated (2 cups of berries made ½ cup of jam), and was generally lacking in jamminess – it wasn’t cohesive enough, for lack of a better word. By the next day, small pools of liquid needed to be stirred in.The strawberries didn’t work at all using this technique, even when I pureed them in the blender first. The resulting mush in no way resembled jam.

I had seen recipes for sugar-free strawberry jam which included strawberry Jello. Since I was going for a fresh flavor, I decided to try using unflavored gelatin. For the blackberries, a bit less than a packet (a little less than 2 teaspoons) worked well for two cups of blackberries mixed with 2/3 cup of water and sweetener to taste. This produced a little less than a cup and a half of jam, and I liked the consistency. It was a little “bouncy”, and needed to be stirred, but it produced a credible and spreadable jam. The strawberries did not come out as well, but it was OK. I used the full packet (a little more than 2 teaspoons) for 1 cup of puree produced by blending 2 cups of chopped strawberries with half a cup of water. The taste was good, and it was spreadable, but the consistency wasn’t quite right. Next time, I might try cooking the strawberries longer.

Combine fresh or frozen berries and water (1/4 cup per cup of berries for not/Sugar and 1/3 cup for gelatin). Bring to a boil and cook berries for 4 to 5 minutes. Mash the berries against the side of the pot to break them down (or you can use a potato masher or stick blender). Whisk in thickener in amounts as described above. Spoon into clean freezer-safe containers, and cool.