Over the summer, I wanted my kids to experience a small taste of fun HomeEc type activities. When you add that to my recent preoccupation with fresh fruits and veggies, you get … well, a mess. Haha. However, with four kids aged 5 years old and younger, there will always be a mess. So, I decided we should make homemade jams. After a trip to our local orchard, we decided to start with blackberry jam. Just the thought of it made my mouth water.
See? 1 Quart of beautiful Blackberries. 
Before we got started, I needed supplies. 🙂 We headed off to Wal-Mart and purchased canning supplies.
Then, I spent some time on the internet trying to figure out how to “prepare” the jars. WHY DOESN’T SPEAK PLAIN ENGLISH IN THESE TYPE OF INSTRUCTIONS??
I finally figured out the plan.
Wash the jars, lids, and rings with warm, soapy water.
Once the jars, et al are washed, place the lids into a pot of water. Let come to a boil and then turn down to a simmer.
Place jars in a large pot (I used my Presto Canner) and fill with water to at least an inch above the top of the jars. Then, allow the water to come to a boil.
After the blackberries have been washed, crush them.
This is DD helping me crush the blackberries. Please note that she is wearing her pink sunglasses. This is a necessity, of course.
I forgot a step. We had all the Crazies taste a blackberry. Since this was a homeschool lesson, this was very important.
They loved them. SCORE! Ok, back to making jam. I allowed each Crazy to help crush the blackberries. While DS #2 was crushing, he was a tad zealous.
Minor cleanup on Aisle 4, please! His crushed blackberries went everywhere but at least he is passionate! 🙂 Once the blackberries were crushed, we measured our 5 cups of sugar
and our 4.5 TBS of pectin.
We put our blackberries in a large pot and then added the pectin.
Once the pectin was in the blackberries, we stirred it and let it come to a rolling boil.
We also added 1/2 tsp of margarine to cut down on froth when the blackberries cooked.
Once the blackberries came to a rolling bowl, it was sugar time. We added the 5 cups of sugar.
After the sugar was added to the blackberries, we allowed the mixture to come back to a rolling boil and boil for 1 minute.
As soon as the blackberry sugar mixture has boiled 1 minute, we immediately took it off of the burner. JAR TIME! Before I go any further, please remember this: HOT FOODS IN HOT JARS AND COLD FOODS IN COLD JARS. This will help you avoid shattering and glass everywhere.
Using tongs, take one jar at a time out of the boiling water and place on a rack.
We used our funnel and slowly learned how to not make a mess when putting the very hot jam in the jars.
Once the jar is full, we used the neat little magnetic stick to pick up the lid and place it on the jar.
We screwed the lids on to only finger tightness.
As soon as the lid was on, the jars went back into the simmering water of the Canner.
The jars were allowed to come to a rolling boil and boil for 10 minutes. Once they had boiled for 10 minutes, we turned the burner off and they sat in the Canner for another 5 minutes. The jars came out of the Canner and cooled on a rack for 12 hours.
Then, well… we ate it.
This homeschool lesson was definitely a SWEET success! 😉
How many pints of jam did one quart if berries make?