Autumn Olive [Elaeagnus umbellata] Jam

This year I've had a bumper crop of autumn olives.   We have several wild trees and the one across the way is huge and covered with berries.  They're good this year.   Even the dog will strip ripe berries from the lowest branches.  

With all that abundance, I thought you might like a quick list of the lovely jams you can make with these wonderful berries.

Elaeagnus Raspberry Jam [my favorite!]

Elaeagnus Peach Jam

Elaeagnus Apple Jam

Elaeagnus Orange Ginger Jam

Once you've made the jam, here's a great recipe for Eric's Jam Bars.  Delish!

And if you're wondering what the heck autumn olives are in the first place, check out this post.

Berry Pie Filling with Perma-Flo

We've been so busy this summer. It seems that all the fruit got ready at once. Within a week, we had bushels of peaches, cherries, blueberries and raspberries. So much goodness all at one time! I got together with one of my sisters for a day and we blasted out dozens of quarts of pie fillings. Peach Vanilla, Spiced Peach, Sour Cherry, Mixed Berry.... So, so delicious. One of the tricks of making berry pie fillings for canning is making sure that everything is heated enough, but that the berries aren't stirred so much that they are completely broken down in the process. Not to worry, I had a plan. Heat 1/4 of the berries with water, smash them to bits for as much juice as possible, then add the perma-flo and make the sauce. Once the sauce was done, then add the berries and heat through stirring gently. Bring back to a boil and can. It worked perfectly!!  

Berry Pie Filling with Perma-Flo
www.rurification.com

1 gallon red raspberries and black raspberries mixed
1 quart water
2 cups sugar
1 cup Perma Flo

Mix the sugar and Perma Flo and set aside.   Put the water and 1 quart of the berries in a large pot and smash the berries with a potato masher to release the juice.   Add the sugar and Perma Flo and stir well.   Heat the mixture until it boils, stirring constantly.   When it boils, it will become clear and thick.   When the sauce is clear and bubbling, add the rest of the berries and fold them gently in.  You don't want to break them all up.   Once the mix is boiling again, it's ready to go into the jars.

We processed the jars for 30 minutes for canning.

Yeild: 4-5 quarts of pie filling.

Elaeagnus [Autumn Olive] Raspberry Jam

I'm shameless.  I saved the best for last.

As you know, I've been doing a lot of new jams this year using the abundant elaeagnus [autumn olive] berries around here.  I'm happy to say that the family has loved every single one of them.  However, this one was truly a jam home-run.

I mixed the elaeagnus with red raspberries to see if it would be anything like the cran-raspberry stuff you get at the store.  [You can make jelly out of the cran-raspberry juice at the store by using this method here.  It's fabulous!]   It worked.  

Oh. My. Sweet. Buttered. Biscuits.

This jam. 

This Jam! 

Come to mama.   As soon as the first jar was emptied, someone opened a second [so it's a good thing I made 2 batches of this one!]

Elaeagnus [Autumn olive] Raspberry Jam
www.rurification.com

2 cups elaeagnus [autumn olive] pulp [for directions on getting the pulp, see this post]
2 cups red raspberries [fresh or frozen]
3 tablespoons low sugar pectin
2 - 3 cups sugar 

Combine elaeagnus, raspberries and pectin in a large pot. Bring to a hard boil [one that you can't stir down.] Boil one minute, stirring constantly.   Add sugar and stir well.  Bring to hard boil again stirring constantly.  Boil one minute.   Ladle into jars and cover with clean lids and rings.  Process for canning.

This jam is very acidic and is very safe for canning.  Makes about 5 cups.

Note:  I used 3 cups of sugar and it's pretty sweet.  If you want to use less sugar, I think you might be able to try it with only 2 cups.  Taste it before you do the final boil to see if you need more sugar and add to taste.

Raspberry Jam White Chocolate Almond Bars

It's a ridiculously long name for these bar cookies but when you taste them, they will Knock. Your. Socks. Off.  These are my favorite holiday cookie and one of my favorite Things To Do with a Jar of Jam.

This year Lily wanted them for her birthday cake.   Her birthday [which was on the 23rd] is the official kick-off of our holidays.  Our holiday baking starts that day and goes through New Year's Day, which is why I'm posting so many recipes lately.  

I hope you can find a moment to make even a half batch of these.   You'll love them. 

I used some of my own black raspberry jam for these.   You could substitute out a different kind if you like.   I was thinking about how good it would be with cherry jam.  Or apricot jam.  Or a chunky apple jam.   Mmmmm.  [Or marmalade...?]


Raspberry Jam White Chocolate Almond Bars
www.rurification.com

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups butter
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
2 eggs
1 pint red or black raspberry jam [Or cherry jam, or apricot, or chunky apple jam.]
1 cup white chocolate chips [vanilla chips]
4 oz slivered almonds

Preheat oven to 350.

Combine sugar, butter, salt and vanilla.  Cream together.   Add flour one cup at a time and beat until crumbly.   Remove 1 cup of this mixture and set aside.   Add eggs, one at a time to the rest of the mixture and beat well into a dough.   Press the dough evenly into a 13 x 9 pan.   Bake for 25 minutes or until lightly browned.   Remove from oven.

Spread jam evenly over hot crust.  Sprinkle white chocolate chips evenly over the jam.  Sprinkle the almonds evenly on top.    Evenly crumble the rest of the crust mix that you had set aside on top of everything.   Return to oven and bake for another 25 minutes until lightly golden.  Cool completely, then cut into bars. 

Chocolate Raspberry Jam

I saved my favorite for last.

Confession.   Those are frozen raspberries.  Which is why they don't look fresh.  They used to be fresh before they were frozen.    I'm hoping that counts since it's February and fresh raspberries cost as much as a new transmission, which is costly, let me tell you. 

And let me tell you that even though these were frozen raspberries, this jam was so delicious that it was all I could do to pry it away from everyone and not eat the entire contents of the jar for dinner.

It's that good.




Chocolate Raspberry Jam
www.rurification.com

1   12 oz. pkg frozen raspberries.   Or 2 cups.  Whatever.
1 cup water
2 Tablespoons Low Sugar pectin [Use only 1 T to keep it thin enough for ice cream.]
1 cup sugar
chocolate:  1.3 oz chocolate bar or 1/3 cup chocolate chips.  Or as much as you want.   Seriously.  

Cook the raspberries and pectin in the water until the raspberries are soft and broken up.  Feel free to mash them more if you like.   Bring to a hard rolling boil and boil for one minute.   Add sugar and chocolate.  Return to boil.   Boil one minute.    Yield: Just over a pint.

Note:  This was sweet, but it wasn't very sweet.   You might want to add more sugar especially if you're using a dark or less sweet chocolate.   Taste it after you've added the sugar and chocolate and things have melted down.    If it needs to be sweeter add 1/2 cup more sugar.    Then finish.

On ice cream.   A. Mazing.

UPDATE:   I used regular pectin for this jam and it did not gel at all.    You really need a lot of sugar to make regular pectin work.   Keep your eyes open for low sugar pectin and use that whenever you can so that you have a lot of flexibility over how much sugar you use in a recipe.     I recommend 2 T low sugar pectin here because I know that gels when I make raspberry jam.    1 T will give a soft gel.

Want the recipe for this Chocolate Jam and a whole lot of other terrific jam recipes?   Check out my ebook:  A Simple Jar of Jam  at www.rurification.etsy.com.   You can preview the book by clicking the link on the sidebar.  Every purchase helps support this site.  Thank you!