As many of you know, I live in a fairly compact apartment (remember these pictures of my kitchen?). My husband and I have something in the neighborhood of 1,050 square feet that we call our own. In the last three years, my canning habit has expanded and between empty jars, full jars and equipment, occupies a goodly amount of our available storage space. Over the last 12 months, it was necessary as I was creating and testing recipes for my cookbook project.
This summer, I’ve decided that it’s time to scale back just a bit. And though I love having enough to give away to friends and family, I just don’t need to make vast batches of strawberry jam that yield five or six pints. For my own use, just a few half pint jars will most certainly do. And so I’m going to try something new here on the blog. Every week or two, I’ll be posted a recipe under the header “Urban Preserving.” These recipes will be small batch preserves, all scaled to use just a pint, a quart or pound of produce. The yields will be petite, perfect for those of you who have small households or are short on space, time or cash.
Before I left town for the Memorial Day holiday, I turned a quart of strawberries into three half pints of strawberry vanilla jam. I bought the berries on a Sunday, chopped them up when I returned home from the farmers’ market and tossed them with a cup of sugar and two split vanilla beans. Poured into a jar, the berries took a three-day rest in the refrigerator. I didn’t actually intend to let them macerate for that long, but as so often happens, life was busy and I just could not find the time to make jam until Wednesday night.
One of the true joys of small batch canning is that there’s no need to pull out a giant pot to serve as your water bath. A small one does the job just fine. I have two such pots that work well as a tiny canning pot. The first is the asparagus pot that I wrote about here. The second is the tall, spouted pot
Called a 4th burner pot, this is truly one of the best and most versatile pieces of cookware I own. I love it for making pickles, because you can heat the brine in it and then pour it directly into the jars. It makes the perfect gravy pot during the holidays. It can double as a tea kettle. And because it’s got that rack, it makes a terrific small batch canning pot. See how perfectly those three half-pint Elite jars fit into it?
So, to catch up, I poured the jar of chopped, macerated strawberries into a 5 1/2 quart pot. I added an additional cup of sugar (bringing the total to 2 cups) and removed the vanilla bean pods. I turned up the heat and inserted a thermometer to track the temperature. I cooked the jam to 220 degrees and also eyeballed the back of the spoon, rivulet test. A lemon’s worth of juice and zest went it towards the end of cooking.
There’s another reason that making small batch jam is so satisfying. Because there’s less volume in the pot, it cooks down more quickly. That means it’s easier to get it to 220 degrees and often means that you can skip the pectin in recipes that might otherwise need it (I know that there are some of you who eschew the pectin entirely, but I’ve always found it necessary when making strawberry jam). Shorter cooking time also means a fresher tasting jam and such glowing color!
The jam was poured into the hot half pint jars (it fit exactly, but I scraped every droplet out of the pot to ensure evenly filled jars), lids were applied and the jars were stacked into the rack. Lowered into the pot, they spent 10 minutes simmering in the handy 4th burner pot.
Within 45 minutes of when I turned on the heat under my jam pot, the jars were out of the canner and pinging on the counter top. I took one jar up to Northampton last weekend to share with our hosts. The other two jars are tucked away for next winter.
A non-narrative, traditionally organized recipe is after the jump. Small Batch Strawberry Vanilla Jam
1 quart strawberries (a little over 1 1/2 pounds, should be approximately 4 cups of chopped berries)
2 cups sugar, divided
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Wash and chop berries. Toss them with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla beans/seeds and place in a large jar or bowl. Allow the berries to macerate for at least 2-3 hours and up to 72 hours.
When you’re ready to make the jam, prepare three half pint jars.
Pour macerated strawberries into a large pot and add the remaining cup of sugar. Bring to a boil and simmer until the jam reaches 220 degrees. Add the lemon zest and juice in the final 5 minutes of cooking.
Once the jar has reached 220 degrees, remove the pan from the heat. Pour jam into your prepared jars. Wipe rims, apply lids and rings and process in your canner for 10 minutes (normally I’d admonish you not to start your timer until the water has returned to a boil. However, as long as your water is quite hot when the jars go into the canner, the time it will take to return to boiling should be minimal).
When time is up, remove jars from canner and let them cool on a towel-lined counter top. When jars are cool enough to handle, remove rings and check seals. If any jars are not sealed, store them in the fridge and use them first. Store sealed jars in a cool, dark place.
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Yum. I’m hoping and praying for a better strawberry season here in Portland this year. Last year was dismal. With a three-year-old around, we go through a lot of jam, but I’m excited for adding vanilla to more jams this year!
This is great! I think this “urban preserving” feature is going to be my go-to
Marisa, where can we find a 4th burner pot with rack like that? I would love to get my hands on one…
If you click the link where I first mention it, you should be taken to the amazon listing for that pot.
Love this. I think you are the only other foodie that has a kitchen as small as mine, although yours is arguably better outfitted. This will be perfect for helping me make the best of a case of jars and get a nice range of goodies.
I made strawberry vanilla a couple of weeks ago and it was killer. I love your small batch methods!! As always inspiring!!! XO!
It’s hot as blue blazes in Charleston already, so most of our strawberries are already gone. But we’ve got a trip to the (cooler) mountains planned, and I love that I can make this without lugging all of my processing equipment on a trip! Thanks!
I love this new header. Last summer I did a lot of small batch canning in large part due to your blog and your recipes. It is a fantastic way to intoroduce oneself to canning and to new flavors and textures. Being short on storage space (sorta: I reserve my pantry for jars and jars of tomato sauce) and TIME (three kids, ages 3 to 6), small batch canning was a revelation. “Urban Preserving” will be great for me, too! Thanks, Marisa!
Marisa this is terrific!!! I’m starting a folder in my documents titled URBAN PRESERVING just for these recipes! How awesome! Heading to Maine next week where their seasons are a bit later than ours and I may be able to make some with my sister!!! Look forward to more of these types of recipes!!! Thanks so much!
Love your Urban Preserving rule…short on space, time or cash! I am all over this and looking forward to many Urban Preserving posts. As always, thank you for sharing!
Brilliant idea. I often hear my students say that even a six jar batch is too much, and this is such a smart way to address their concerns. Thank you for continuing to be such a thoughtful contributxor to the canning conversation.
This post comes at the perfect time, since I have one quart of strawberries left over from last night’s monster freezer jam making session. I love making freezer jam because it gives you the fresh picked taste, since it’s not been cooked, but I think I’m ready to make my very first “real” jam!
I love this… we can only use so many jars of jam in a year, and our apartment is currently 500 sf. Finding a place to keep the jars is a huge challenge.
Yay! There’s only my husband and I, also with limited storage space, so I’m super psyched for these small batch guides. I might just have to use this one after my strawberry picking. Thanks!
thank you! this is perfect for keeping my skills broadening AND for those little batches of things that are “fancy” – the stuff i can give away as gifts etc.
Hello! I have been looking for smaller recipes.
I used to make about 20 quarts each of jam from every fruit I could get my hand on, plus pickles etc.
My girls have their own homes and children now, and I have moved from a home where my cold room was about 20×20 and
moved into a mini home. I am alone except for my Mama who came to live with me last summer.
So I am very limited in space, not as much consumed, but I still like to have homemade.
Thank you for providing smaller amount recipes.
Charlie
This is great! I started reading your blog a few weeks ago in an attempt to educate myself on canning. I am scared to try it because recipes do call for so much fruit/veg, time and effort. And I am notorious for screwing up the first try at EVERY recipe!
These small batches will be great for learning and for my small house of DH and I. Can’t wait for future Urban Preserving posts!
Marisa, thanks so much for posting this small batch recipe. This is the first time I finally realized that you can stack the jars in the water bath (duh, I know). This is so practical, too! I have a tiny galley kitchen, a lack of hours for a big job, and a hot kitchen so this makes the canning and jamming I want to do this summer, much more feasible. I look forward to the urban preserving posts and even more to your book!!
Awesome ideas! I look forward to reading more “small batch” recipes. I had to get a cabinet to put all my canning stuff in.. and am running out of space already!
This looks like a great technique! Is it really ok to stack the jars like that? I haven’t done much actual canning – I do mainly freezer jam and refrigerator pickles, although I did do a buttload of peaches last year!
My favorite canning book is The Complete Book of Small Batch Canning. Everything I have made out of it has been wonderful. I live in the city, have a tiny community garden spot, yet these small recipes are do-able with my own produce. Love it.
One of the great things I’ve learned from your web site is that you can do preserving in stages without any harm. My life also gets real busy, and like many canners, I can get a little over enthusiastic when buying. I have cherry vanilla jam macerating in the fridge and it’s been there since Monday. Tonight’s the night!
So excited about the small batch recipes! And what a brilliant idea to use an asparagus pot as a canner. I have one, but have never used it. I have a feeling it’ll get a lot of use this summer. Thanks for being so creative!
Great! This is a recipe I might try since I’m adverse to big scale canning operations.
I love the idea of the Urban Preserving recipes….It’s so much more convenient than spending hours preserving tons of fruit/veg!
This sounds yummy – although I don’t do “small” batches of anything around here, I might just have to buy a quart of strawberries today to try out a batch – I even have some vanilla on hand
Thanks for sharing!
So good you are doing this I notice so many people who are not able to do large batch and so many times we do just have enough for a baby batch…Thanks for the tip on the 4th burner pot…
This excites me so! Your small batch recipes are going to be perfect for me, as I have very limited time and there are only 2 of us at home. Thank you for sharing. BTW – I made a batch of your Sweet & Sour Pickled Red Onions last week and they turned out great. They tasted so good even before I put them in the jars to process, so I know they will be even more delish after sitting for a week. As an added bonus, the color looks so pretty sitting on the shelf in my pantry. I have several more recipes marked for testing soon.
I, too, am excited about more small batch recipes. I have significantly more space than you. But keeping a variety of whatever comes home from the produce market sounds better than the zillion quarts of peaches my mother and grandmother used to put up. A person can get tired of peaches. On another note, I have had limited luck with jam that has no added pectin, so I need to pay more attention to what the variables are there. Temperature? I’ll be listening.
I’ve actually been doing small batch canning since I started. It was my way of trying out recipes. I scaled the recipes accordingly, and they’ve always turned out. Most recently, I’ve been making your strawberry vanilla jam. It SO wonderful!
Where did you get that wire cage you put the jars in? That would be hand as my stock pot I can in isn’t wide enough for a rack.
Brandee, that wire cage came with the 4th burner pot that I described in the post. That’s a big part of why I love that little pot so much.
Awesome! I’ve gotten a bunch of preserving cookbooks, including one with a chair in the title and all of them make a shitton of jam. There’s only us and the hounds, we can’t eat that much jam. I am so thrilled you’ve posted this…and vanilla-strawberry, well ring a ding ding!
Oh, wonderful! I don’t quite have the room to put up oodles of jams myself. This is a great start…I’m looking forward to more of these posts! Thank you!
That looks really yummy and I really love your idea for Urban Preserving posts, that will be perfect for me and my wee apartment!
I should do more small batch canning…it seems like my huge canning pot takes an hour to start boiling (and that’s starting with hot tap water).
Yay! I am so excited for some small batch recipes. We are limited on space too. I cant wait to be able to try more recipes out.
Thank you!
Needless to say, this is right up my alley! Thanks so much for doing small batches
This idea rocks, it will let me get canning!
And this is good for those of us worried about (or prone to) messing up a recipe and not wasting a bunch of produce/money. I just purchased a GIANT canning pot this past weekend because my trusty stockpot (really a dutch oven) just isn’t tall enough. HUGE difference between it and the 21.5qt monstrosity that takes over the stove. I might be picking up that small pot you have this weekend- hooray for mom’s discount at the kitchen store!
THANK YOU!!!! FINALLY! I have been scouring the web for recipes that are smaller portioned. I am SO excited for these posts!
Thank you so much for this new series. My family just won’t be able to use huge amounts of jams, but I’ve been dying to start canning. I was going to email you and ask about how to reduce the recipe. I’m trying this on Sunday after I take my daughter strawberry picking.
[...] Urban Preserving: Small Batch Strawberry Vanilla Jam | Food in Jars – Marisa is starting what sounds like a great series on small-batch preserving for those with limited space and/or time. [...]
THANKYOU sooo much for this announcement!
Ive just started preserving for the first time in my life. I am a New Zealander and my fiance is Canadian so we have a lot of recipes we want to try. My future mother in law gave me a family Mennonite recipe book on my request and Ive thoroughly enjoyed learning and making North American type food that we don’t have much of over here. The problem I have is that every preserving recipe I have in my hands caters for women with more than a dozen mouths to feed. Ive predicted that buying huge preserving jars for just myself and token Canadian will be a total pain in the butt plus ehem.. expensive..
PS Love your kitchen – looks just like mine in size so I have hope
Fabuloso! As others say here, I’ll be watching for more of your Urban Preserving posts. Just the other day the thought of hauling out my large canning pot was exhaustive. I’ve seen asparagus cookers but didn’t think that they could double as water bath pots. But the tall, sprouted pot’s rack- hum, something to think about.
Definitely bookmarking this and making soon! Love the cute jars!
I love vanilla in jams as it gives a heightened sense of flavor. Another trick is to use sweet sherry, just a splash, to heighten and brighten the flavor.
Thanks for the tip about the 4th burner pot.
i love this, too! I can only foist off so much jam and jelly on friends and family. thank you for this feature!
I love the smaller recipes AND the spouted pot! I just ordered one from Amazon. I hope you get credit for the link – if Amazon still does that.
I live in a Philly condo and my husband and I don’t agree on what flavor jelly/jam so I am thrilled for this series.
I am confused though. You can stack the jars like that in the water bath?
Thank you for this post. I have to confess that I have always done this in the summer time when the berries are fresh. I am thankful to have my canned preserves in the winter time, but I love having what I call “fresh jam” in the summer time. Sometimes I add a little cornstarch to thicken it up and often only use 1/4 cup of sugar per quart of berries. I love that fresh summer taste. I always was a little embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t real jam when people have commented how tasty it was.
[...] I got home I was reading some of my favourite blogs and I found these two recipes over at Food in Jars and Sugar [...]
Thanks for these smaller batch jams…perfect for me. I’ll definitely be trying them. But perhaps not the strawberry too soon since I just made up a huge batch.
I am macerating strawberries that I purchased earlier today and just received an e-mail saying my vanilla beans have been shipped. So I will be holding out on these strawberries till my beans arrive! Thanks for the recipe!
Great idea on the Urban Preserving series. (That’s a great name for a blog or book! in its own right). I love your blog but am totally intimidated by canning, mainly because I would have to get SO many ingredients, etc, to make it worth it. These smaller batches make it seem easier. Looking forward to trying these recipes and tips. Thank you!
I love this idea! I just tried it with the pint of strawberries I got in my CSA this week, but getting the berries up to 220 turned the batch solid! I have sticky strawberry candy instead of jam.
I love the idea of small batch canning and can’t wait to try it out! I’m a tiny bit confused about no pectin in this recipe. Does the maceration process replace adding pectin to thicken the jam?
I made this recipe yesterday using my asparagus pot for the very first time. Yay for your brilliant idea! I followed your direction and had perfect jam…. but it didn’t quite make the 3 half-pints. My only “complaint” is I thought it was a little too sweet. Maybe the vanilla bean heightened the sweetness of the strawberries? Is there a firm ratio of fruit to sugar that must be followed? I don’t believe in artificial sweeteners, but I try to look for ways to reduce sugar consumption. If sugar is reduced, does that mean pectin would be required? I know that too little sugar prevents gelling and may allow yeast and mold to grow. However, I can’t seem to find any guidelines for how much sugar is required. Thanks for your help! Love your blog, and I’m looking forward to more small batch recipes!!
Sorry to add another post, but the USDA Home Canning Guides (booklet 7 for jams/jellies) is a wealth of information. Google it to find the PDFs. For the person who said their jam turned into a sticky mess…. it was probably due to the wrong temperature. 220F degrees is for sea level. The water bath processing is also according to your elevation. Where I live, my gelling temperature is 218F and 10 minutes processing. Hope this helps!
[...] Strawberry-Lime Vanilla Jam Adapted from Food in Jars [...]
I find this SO helpful.
Thank you!
I think this is a great topic for those of us who have small gardens and often get small crops.
I got a chance to try this recipe on the weekend. I didn’t have any vanilla beans so I added some liquid vanilla. But that wasn’t what I liked most about this recipe, it was the lemon zest! I love the flavor it added. I didn’t have any half pint jars so this made me 2 pints.
I had also never made jam without pectin- I was a little worried at how it would gel but its just fine. Though I think I’d like to use pectin next time as that is a LOT of sugar for 2 jars of jam!
Thanks!
Great idea! I hope this seres includes some small batch tomato recipes. My backyard garden doesn’t give me 20 lbs of tomatoes at once lol. As a new canner I’m hesitant to mess with tomato recipes which I’d certainly need to do when converting down to only 5 or 3 lbs of toms.
[...] It Cook It Can It with Spring Greens Kimchi Pickled Radishes by Eugenia Bone of The Denver Post Small Batch Strawberry Vanilla Jam (with an option to add rhubarb) by Marisa of Food In Jars Spring Onion Kimchi (used Tigress’ [...]
[...] slightly adapted from food in jars [...]
[...] 2.)Small Batch Strawberry Vanilla Jam A simple blending of vanilla bean, sugar, lemon and strawberries promises a taste that is quintessentially summer. For a direct link to the recipe, click here. [...]
Hey- I love the small batch idea and will look for future posts like this. I made this jam last night, but it did not set.
I only macerated my strawberries overnight, but they were very liquidy. I followed your instructions, but I did have 2 quarts of strawberries onhand, so I doubled the recipe. Is that my mistake? I also did add a package of pectin because I’ve had bad luck with getting jams to set in the past. I also realize that the pectin recipe calls for 5 cups fruit to 7 cups sugar… but I followed your recipe (doubled) for 4 cups fruit to 4 cups sugar. It tastes great- almost too sweet already- but it’s really more of a sauce. Do you think it’s worth following the pectin “re-set” method and re-canning them? Any advise is appreciated! Also, what kind of thermometer do you use for canning? I just have meat thermometer, it does go up to 220, but I’m not sure if it’s the best to use?
Jenny, the fact that you doubled the recipe is definitely the reason it did not set. That recipe needs to be kept small to work. It depends on the small volume to surface area ratio to cook the liquid out of the jam and get a reasonable set. However, this recipe will always make a loose set jam. It should move around when you turn the jar.
You could definitely try the recooking method if you want it to have a firmer set. As far as thermometers go, I use a candy thermometer. A meat thermometer won’t give you the specifics you need for something like this.
Noted. I’ll stop messing around with recipes just because I have more fruit laying around. Thanks for your feedback! I think I’ll leave it as-is. It’s a saucy jam and would be delicious used in baking recipes or on soy cheesecake. THANKS!
I tried doubling this recipe, and it turned out fine. I used a wide pan to help get the liquid evaporated quickly. I also tried a recipe in which I doubled the fruit without doubling the sugar, and that also gelled.
My guess would be that your temperature was off, due to your thermometer not being accurate enough, or else your fruit was super-ripe and didn’t have enough pectin left in it.
Or maybe I’m just lucky, jam-wise.
[...] Local Kitchen Strawberry Vodka and Strawberry Vodka Lemonade from Washington’s Green Grocer Small Batch Strawberry Vanilla Jam from Food in Jars Strawberry Freezer Jam with Moscato from Andrea’s Recipes Spruce Tip Jelly from Hitchhiking [...]
This is my very first canning project! I wanted to try something small, to see if I liked the process or not. I just finished cleaning the kitchen. I heard the jars ping and I was so excited. Tomorrow I’m going to go buy a canner and rack – what a great way to spend a rainy June afternoon!
this might sound like a weird question but are those really half pint jars? they seem so short compared to the ones i have. just wondering if theyre not 4 ounce? if they are half where did you get them they look amazing!
Kelley, those really are half pint jars. They are from Ball’s Collection Elite line: http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/new_products/2.php?pid=259&product=289
Hoorah, these are perfect for me!! Definitely gonna try it this summer. To be honest, I just don’t have the patience to do giant batches, but this looks great!
[...] 4. Food in jars. [...]
Thank you so much! I love the idea of small-batch canning, especially since I’m a novice jam maker. However, this morning, I decided to just jump right in, and I’ve made this recipe, your strawberry rhubarb jam recipe, and your blueberry jam, too. I’m so thrilled with how easy they all were – and that they all set up nicely! Lol since I had the water going, I went on and canned some peach salsa and some blackberry chipotle sauce, for good measure. Of course I saved the seeds and will soon have some lovely blackberry vinegar on hand.
Thank you for the inspiration, encouragement, and delicious recipes. My kids are just as excited as I am!!!
[...] made a variation of her Strawberry Vanilla Jam. I omitted the vanilla beans only because I’m not a fan of vanilla flavor in [...]
[...] Small Batch StrawberryVanilla Jam Lots of sugar again in this one, but the lemon was a really nice surprise, and I think I will be adding it to my jams again in the future. [...]
This recipe turned out amazingly well when I used it a couple of weeks ago. We still have a week or two of strawberry season left here in MN, so it may get made again.
In a related note, I’m starting to teach beginning canning lessons at my wonderful local urban farm supply store in St. Paul (http://eggplantsupply.com/) and I’d love to put your blog, and specifically this recipe on my handout as a place for inspiration and recipes. Would that be ok with you?
Thanks for all the inspiration so far!
A few questions… Can I make this with frozen berries (thawed, of course)? What about with blackberries? I have never canned before and this looks so easy! Too bad strawberry season was so short here in Northwest IN!
I find that it’s harder to get frozen berries to set. So while you could certainly use them, it might be runnier than you’d like. I tend to remove seeds from blackberries before making jam, since they have super assertive seeds, but as long as you measured out the same amount of blackberry pulp, you could easily make the same recipe.
Is it still no pectin if I sub the berries?
I’ve made this recipe twice now. Thanks for introducing me to the notion of small batch preserving! It has changed how I do my canning. This particular recipe is a little too sweet for me (even when I’ve reduced the sugar) — but perhaps that’s due to the amazingly sweet berries I’m getting from the farmers’ market these days. I also have not been successful at producing an entire three half-pints. I always end up with one-and-a-half to two. Maybe I’m cooking it down too long, since I definitely end up with a thick-set product (unlike the set-soft set you said it should be). But despite that, I’ll continue making jam this way whenever I have some extra to spare this summer.
A belated thanks for the asparagus pot tip!
Scored one at a thrift store (under $3)!
I find it is great to use as it takes less time/energy to boil the smaller amount of water and doesn’t make the kitchen quite so hot.
Due to our current heatwave, the idea of using the big canner pot was just too much.
I’m really confused on the whole pectin issue. Pectin is not needed in all jam recipes? I am a newbie to canning so would love any advice! I also posted on Facebook a silly question: How come some recipes call for liquid pectin while others the powder kind? Is it really necessary to use a thermometer?
I made this the other day, and it is so good on vanilla bean ice cream.
Please, more small batch preserving recipes!!!!!!!!
Made this yesterday, I am in love. Small batch is so the way to go. Also used this as a template to make a small batch of Raspberry Jam also yummy. Thanks for helping me return to a beloved passtime, its been 15 years since I last made jam.
I bought some Elite jars a year or two ago because they were so cute but HATED using them in my standard water bath canner. I may have to re-think those jars now! One kid left to launch then a 3 jar batch would be about right for hubby & me
[...] husband is such a big fan of the strawberry vanilla jam that we made earlier this summer. This weekend, our friends spent some time talking about how [...]
I made this and it turned out fantastic! I didn’t have vanilla bean so I substituted 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and 1/4 tsp almond, I can’t keep my family from opening the jars and eating the enire contents with vanilla ice cream. It’s just that good.
[...] I dragged out a new set of Ball Elite canning jars and my fourth burner pot (thanks, honey!) which, as featured on Food In Jars, is the perfect canning pot—and had at [...]
I have to say that this is my (and my husband’s) absolute favorite. I can hardly keep him from eating it straight out of the jar. It’s great on everything, cheese apps, turkey sandwiches, I even turned it in to a delicious homemade ice cream! The jam turned out so well I did a number of additional batches to give away for Christmas. Thanks so much for all of the hard work you put into this website!!
I just finished a batch – wonderful recipe. Thank you so very much!
I’ll probably blog about it this week – will certainly post a link back to your blog.
ButterYum
Change of plans – I processed my jars of jam and they never “set”, despite bringing it to the correct temperature using an accurate thermocouple digital thermometer. I made a single batch and macerated my strawberries for 48 hours. I think I’ll have to add more fresh berries and use it as a dessert sauce as it’s too sweet to use as a sauce in its present form.
I’m so sorry to hear that your jam didn’t set. If you’re really unhappy with the set, you could open the jars and recook the jam until it thickens further.