In a Jam.

So today I made jam. Strawberry jam. The strawberries are in season early here, so I ran out to our local grower, The Heeman Family, and I bought a flat of beautiful red berries.

A while ago I was at my mom's and she had the most delicious homemade strawberry jam in her fridge. I ate some and felt like I'd had a burst of summer in my mouth. I asked who made it, got the recipe and was VERY excited to make this myself.

While looking on the Heeman's website, they recommended a different jam recipe, saying that it was by far the best recipe the Heeman family had ever used. That's a pretty big statement coming from strawberry experts like them.

So I decided to try both. A batch of each...and see who won this duel.

The first recipe from my mom's friend (Type A) required 4 cups of strawberries and 7 cups of sugar. Whoa. I like white sugar but even for me, that's a lot of sugar.

The second type, let's call it Type B (ingenious, I know) was far less sugar. Four cups of berries to a measly 1.5 cups of sugar. That's a big difference.

I made the first batch - it's the kind you cook and the jars have to seal and all that jazz. Total time: 1 hr. and a half. Not bad. It looked like jam. The only complaint was that it boiled over on my stove top and made a nasty red mess. Not really the jam's fault.

Type B took about 20 minutes total. Again, quite a different amount. It was simple. Basically you mash, then you stir. You stir again. You place in jars. No boiling over. Not even a chance of being burned by boiling strawberry goo.

Results: Turns out I doubled Type A because I don't know why. I have 18 jars of Type A Jam.
Type B, well, I was running low on berries by this point, so I only made 5 jars.

So about five minutes ago, I laid out a piece of brown bread, cut it in half, and put Type A on one chunk and Type B on the other. The official taste test.

Type B looked nice. I ate it first. It was so so so good. Like eating summer from a jar.

Type A looked nice. I ate it next. It tasted like strawberry jam with about 7 cups of sugar in it. I think I tasted strawberry. Mostly I tasted sweet.

So now I have 18 jars of jam I don't really like and 5 jars of jam I will never share. So if you want some strawberry jam, let me know. It's free. I just need to have the jar back so I can fill it with the good jam.

Seriously, you can have some. I'll even drop it off. For all I care, you can dump it in the garbage. I am very disappointed. Not to the point of tears or anything, but really, 18 jars of the lesser jam? What a waste.

If you want the recipe of the good jam, let me know. I'll save you the hassle!