Wash and pit 8 cups of cherries.

Wash 4 c. red currants and put them in a saucepan with 1/3 c. water.

Cover and bring to a boil, stirring gently, until the skins have popped.

 

 

 

Press cooked currants through a sieve or cheesecloth.

Discard skins, stems and seeds.

Place currant puree, pitted cherries and 5 c. sugar in saucepot.

Currants are naturally high in pectin, so no additional pectin is necessary.

Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Crush cherries with a potato masher. As the cherries warm, they crush easier.

Boil until mixture reaches gel stage.

My recipe says this takes 20 minutes. But it always takes me 1- 1 1/2 hours to reach gel stage. So I usually put olive oil in my hair, pile it on top of my head and do a hot oil treatment while making jam 🙂  At least that way I feel like I’m doing something nice for myself while standing over a hot stove 🙂

Wash jars and stand them in hot water.

Fill canner to half full with water and start heating up.

Put lids in almost boiling water. I decided to try some more Le Parfait jars, so put the rubber gaskets in with the lids.

 

After canning the raspberry jam and noting the condensation which had built up on the inside of the lids of the Le Parfait jars, I double checked their website for tips. They suggest washing the jars and then allowing them to air dry, not having them stand in hot water prior to canning. So I tried this with the hopes of reducing the condensation that appeared.

 

After your jam has FINALLY reached the gel stage, skim foam and ladle into prepared jars.

I put the rubber gasket on the Le Parfait jar prior to filling it. By soaking it in the hot water with the metal non-reusable lids, it stretched easily.

 

Wipe the edge of the jar with a clean, damp cloth or paper napkin.

 

Seal with two piece lids or bail top.

Place jars in canner as you fill them.

Process for ten minutes, making sure to add 1-2 minutes for every 1,000 above sea level. For those of you new to canning, this means to bring the water to a boil and boil the full jars in the canner for ten minutes.

 

After processing for ten minutes, remove canner from heat source, remove canner lid, and allow it to set for five minutes before removing jars from canner.

After five minutes, remove jars from canner and allow them to cool completely before checking seals. The two piece lids will often have an audible ‘pop’ when the vacuum seal occurs.

 

For the Le Parfait jars, checking the seal means to undo the bail top and pull up on the lid. But they have to be completely cold before you check them. Don’t pull on the rubber gasket, because this is how you break the seal when you are ready to consume the contents.

This is a very good jam, it just takes a long time to achieve the gel stage. However, if you’re not in a hurry, you can just put the saucepan on the back burner on medium heat and do something else, coming back to stir it occasionally to keep the jam from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Note: there was still condensation on the lid of the Le Parfait jars even without soaking them in the hot water prior to filling.