October 14, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Pumpkin ice cream

The Starks are always right. Pumpkin-flavoured everything is coming.

Before you get started: Freeze your ice cream bowl for at least 15 hours. After all the ingredients are combined, chill at least 1 hour before churning. This recipe is from the book that came with the attachment.

Time required: 3 hours (under 1 hour of actual work)

Yields: about 8 cups of ice cream

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $29.

Cost per scoop: maybe $1.80

Kitchen implements I used:

Nemo the KitchenAid mixer
ice cream maker attachment
mesh strainer

Ingredients:

1½ C half and half (or light cream)
6 egg yolks
¾ C granulated white sugar
½ TSP vanilla
¾ TSP pumpkin pie spice
1½ C heavy cream
1½ C canned pumpkin

Instructions:

1. Scald the half and half in a heavy-bottomed sauce pot.

2. Combine yolks, sugar, and vanilla.

3. Use a strainer, and gradually temper in the hot half and half. Eww yuck skim.

4. Whisk in pumpkin pie spice.

5. Return mixture to stove, heat on medium-low for 10 min, stirring frequently. It’ll thicken. Don’t let it boil though.

6. Remove pot from heat.

7. Add canned pumpkin and heavy cream to mixing bowl. Strain in the hot mixture and whisk together.

Some desserts cannot be strained enough. I wholeheartedly endorse straining anything that involves scalded dairy.

Have no fear, it will all combine into this.

8. Chill at least one hour before churning into ice cream.

9. When you are ready to make ice cream, churn on speed 1 for 15-20 minutes until dasher clicks.

It stayed pretty fluid until about 15 minutes, that’s when I could see it was starting to firm up. Mine took 18 minutes before the first click.

I am pleased to report this time that I have figured out the frozen bowl completely, it stayed in place, and no thumbs were pinched.

10. Transfer to tupperware container and freeze at least 1 hour before serving.

11. Let thaw a few minutes before scooping with beautiful blue KitchenAid scoop!!

Verdict: Boyfriend says it tastes just like pumpkin pie, it was so good. I can’t really tell what it tastes like because I have a cold and my taste buds have died. :[

Making ice cream is so great! What shall I do with all of the frozen egg whites I have left over?

Playlist: Halo OST

October 11, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Strawberry jam

I invited a friend over recently, and she brought me a most fabulous birthday present: a canning starter kit. Wow! I was totally blown away, and very excited to make jam on my own. When Boyfriend came home and saw the canning kit, he got stars in his eyes and ran out to buy me some jars. Here is my first batch.

Before you get started: Listen up! Canning can kill (I should write slogans), so go read up on it before trying this at home. In my first post about making jam with my sister M, I went into very detailed instructions, but this time I’m just posting the basic recipe and sterilization information:

Sanitize jars in the oven, pre-heat to 108°C / 225°F and heat jars for 10 minutes, then keep in the hot oven until needed.
Sanitize lids in a pot of steaming (not boiling) water, keep in hot water until needed.

Time required: 2 days (1 hour of actual work, needs to set 24 hours)

Yields: um… stay tuned on that

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $18.

Cost per jar: well…nevermind

Ingredients:

1 package of Pectin
4½ C of crushed strawberries
7 C granulated white sugar

Instructions:

1. Place canning rack in canning pot, fill with water about halfway. Simmer and cover. Sanitized jars should be in hot oven, sanitized lids should be in hot water (see tips above).

2. In a bowl combine ¼ C white sugar and pectin. (Reserve the rest of the sugar for later.)

3. Crush the berries with a potato masher. Make sure you have 4½ C of crushed berries, which is not the same thing as 4½ C of berries. Very important difference!

Actually I didn’t own a potato masher until yesterday, I took the berries out to thaw, and realized I had nothing to crush them with. One rushed trip to the store and…

4. Transfer berries to large pot, and stir in the sugar/pectin mixture.

5. Put pot on stove and bring to a boil, then stir in remaining sugar. Increase heat til you achieve a rolling boil (can’t stir it down). Let pot boil for 1 min, stirring often.

You should stir often so it won’t scorch. It actually started to boil over at one point.

6. Remove from heat, stir and skim for 5 minutes.

‘

Voila!

7. Place a funnel into a hot jar. Use a fresh measuring cup to spoon the jam into the jar.

8. Fill to the ¼” mark (the one tool I don’t have is a headspace gauge so I eyeballed this to the top ring).

What’s this?? Three filled jars and I’m out of jam. WTF.

9. Use the end of a measuring spoon to gently stir out air bubbles. Wipe the rim of the jar clean when you are done. (Jam on the rim will affect the seal.)

10. Use magnetic lifter to get the hot lids onto the jars.

11. Use your finger tips to screw the ring onto the jar. You don’t want it super-tight, because the air in the jar will expand as the hot jam heats it up, and that hot air needs to be able to escape the jar, to create the vacuum seal when the jar cools.

12. Now it’s time to use the canning pot and rack. The water should be hot but not boiling yet. Use the jar lifter to set the jars onto the rack. The water needs to be 1 to 2″ above the tops of the jars.

13. Turn up the heat until you have a full rolling boil, then cover and cook for 10 minutes.

14. Use jar lifter to remove jars from pot, and set into a lined pan. Leave room between jars for air to circulate. Let jars sit undisturbed for 24 hours. You should hear a “pop” as the jars cool.

15. The next day check the seal. (If you have sealed your jars correctly, you can pick them up by the lids without the lids coming off.) Remove the rings, the lids should be “sucked down”. Press down on the centre of the lids with your finger. If the lid goes down it did not seal.

Verdict: Well, considering I don’t even like strawberry anything (except the fresh fruit), I thought this was pretty good. I made strawberry because it sounded easy and Boyfriend likes it. The reason I only got three jars of jam is that I used the wrong size jars. I thought I would get six or seven 250 mL jars, but what I had was 500 mL jars, oh well!

Playlist: Final Fantasy

October 8, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Belgian chocolate peanut butter ice cream

It’s Thanksgiving. I have no pumpkin. But I have something better.

This was a three-person enterprise made by yours truly, Boyfriend, and our friend V. This recipe is from the book that came with my ice cream maker, and I used my favourite Callebaut Belgian chocolate instead of baking squares, and added peanut butter chips. It was even more of a production than the cookies ‘n cream if you can imagine!

Before you get started: Your ice cream bowl needs to be frozen for at least 15 hours.

Once your start churning the ice cream, never, ever stop the mixer.

Time required: 2 days (1.5 hours of actual work and overnight chilling)

Yields: about 8 cups of ice cream

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $41, depending on the quality of chocolate

Cost per scoop: maybe $2.50

Kitchen implements required:

Nemo the KitchenAid
ice cream attachment
strainer

Ingredients:

2 C heavy cream, divided
60 g semi-sweet chocolate (2 oz)
60 g unsweetened chocolate (2 oz)
2 C half and half
1 C granulated white sugar
⅓ C cocoa
8 egg yolks
4 TSP vanilla extract
⅛ TSP salt
184 g milk chocolate (6.2 oz)
1 C peanut butter cup pieaces

Instructions:

1. Chop the chocolate with a serrated blade, weigh it out and set aside. (The milk chocolate needs to be kept seperate, but the semi-sweet and unsweetened can be put in the same bowl.)

2. Using a double boiler on low, heat ½ C of the heavy cream, with the semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate. Stir often and once chocolate has melted smoothly, remove from heat.

3. In a different sauce pan on medium, heat the half and half to steaming. Remove from heat. (I convinced Boyfriend and V to do the stirring and pot watching because I HATE that part. Ah, helpers!)

4. In a small bowl combine sugar and cocoa. Set aside.

5. In mixer combine egg yolks and sugar/cocoa mix, beat til blended.

6. Gradually temper in the warm chocolate/cream mixture into the yolks. Strain the warm half and half into the yolks. Don’t skip straining, it catches a huge skim which you don’t want in your ice cream. Or maybe you do. Ew. Blend on low until mixture is thoroughly combined.

7. Return mixture to sauce pan, heat to scalding (small bubbles form under surface but don’t let it boil). It will thicken up a bit but don’t worry.

8. Remove from heat, and stir in the remaining 1½ C of heavy cream into the hot mixture. Cover and chill overnight.

9. The next day, place frozen bowl in mixer and start the mixer. Pour in chilled mixture, all at once, and beat on speed 1 for 10-15 minutes.

So yeah… what I said about don’t stop once you’ve started? The bowl was making a funny noise, and Boyfriend determined I put the bowl on backwards. The mixer was stopped for 30 seconds to re-position the bowl. Bad idea. By the time the mixer started back up, the ice cream had completely frozen to the bowl and he had to churn it by hand like crazy to get it going again, while I cursed and shouted in the background.

“It’s ruined. It’s going to be awful. Look, it’s not even moving!”

“It’s not ruined, it’s going to be fine!”

10. When 30 seconds remain, add milk chocolate, and peanut butter chips.

11. Transfer to tupperware container and freeze at least 2 hours.

12. Let stand 10 minutes before scooping.

Verdict: Wow, this is delicious. It reminds me a lot of Chocolate Supreme ice cream which I haven’t had in years. It’s very rich though. Three scoops was way too much. Can’t wait til V gets to try it.

Playlist: Halo OST

October 4, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Cookies ‘n cream ice cream

For reasons I have never been able to fathom, Boyfriend does not like ice cream. But that’s totally cool, because that means there is more for me. Behold! Homemade ice cream!!

How did I make ice cream, you ask? Well! My wonderful family sent me the KitchenAid ice cream maker for my birthday. It’s an attachment designed to fit any model of a KA mixer, and I have been lusting after it for months. I can’t believe it’s finally mine!!

Before you get started: Making ice cream can be a two-day process. The bowl used to churn the cream needs to be frozen for at least 15 hours, and the recipe may require that you chill the mixed ingredients over night. This particular recipe (from the book that comes with the attachment) is very similar to making custard. I used real vanilla bean instead of extract though.

There is a helpful video here which shows how to assemble and use the attachment. Changing the ingredients or the ratios can screw up your finished product.

Time required: 2 days (1.5 hour of actual work)

Yields: I don’t even know, it’s a lot.

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $20.

Cost per scoop: Can you price joy? I don’t think so.

Kitchen implements I used:

Nemo the KitchenAid mixer
ice cream maker attachment
strainer

Ingredients:

2½ C half and half
half of one vanilla bean, split and scraped
8 egg yolks
1 C granulated white sugar
⅛ TSP salt
2½ C heavy cream
10 Oreo cookies

Instructions:

1. In a heavy-bottomed sauce pan on medium heat, combine scraped vanilla bean and the half and half. Heat to steaming.

2. Combine egg yolks, sugar, and salt. Using speed 2 for 30 seconds is enough.

3. Pour hot mixture through strainer and temper into the eggs, and whisk on low to combine.

4. Return entire mixture to stove top, and heat to scalding.

When small bubbles form at the edge it’s ready. Oops. This has heated too much. I used a different sauce pot for the second time and the bottom is too thin. Ugh I knew changing pots was a bad idea but I couldn’t be bothered to wash and dry my best pot for this type of stuff. That’ll teach me.

5. Transfer mix to a metal bowl and place into cold water bath. This will cool the temperature to prevent it from cooking.

After I poured the mixture into the red bowl, I looked at bottom of the sauce pan. Uh oh. This is not good. Scorched eggy mixture. I hope my ice cream doesn’t taste like burnt eggs. That would be worse than having no ice cream at all.

Hopefully the strainer caught all the bad stuff. (Don’t force stuff through the strainer, that defeats the point of straining.)

(Instant water bath! Sink! Ice cubes! Water!)

6. Cover mixture and chill overnight.

7. The next day, chop up Oreos and set aside.

8. Fit the drive assembly over the pin on the head of the mixer. Take chilled ice cream bowl from freezer, assemble the lock on the base, and set it in the stand. Set the dasher inside the bowl and turn mixer on lowest speed. The head should grab the dasher and turn smoothly.

Now here is where I ran into problems. Try as I might, the bowl would not fit into the base. I wish I had tested this before freezing, but now I’m panicking that my bowl is thawing so I decide to go ahead, and I’ll just hold the bowl steady while it churns. (Not the best idea, a KA mixer churns like you wouldn’t believe even on low and I got my thumbs pinched.)

9. In one pour, add the entire chilled mix to the running mixer (if the mixer is stopped your ingredients will flash freeze to the side of the bowl).

10. Churn on lowest speed for 20 minutes. It will start rising up the sides, the middle looks the right texture but the edges are soft and liquidy, I tried to scrape down the rim a few times but at this point it becomes gloriously messy. I wasn’t worried because from everything I have read about making ice cream at home, it’s normal to get soft serve and you freeze it to harden further.

11. When you have 30 seconds left, add the Oreos. The KA recipe said to use one and half cups of chopped Oreos. That was too much, they flew out of the bowl and hit me in the face. I got Oreos and ice cream everywhere.

12. It’s done! The ice cream is soft serve at this state, so transfer to a tupperware container and freeze for a few hours.

13. When you’re ready to enjoy some, let it sit 5 minutes on the counter before scooping.

Verdict: Delicious!! I invited a friend over and we enjoyed this lovely ice cream on my patio.

I was afraid I ruined it last night when I overcooked it during the second heating phase, but it turned out wonderfully! I’m still unclear why the bowl didn’t fit into the bottom of the mixer. After I cleaned the dishes I tested this again, and the bowl sits in there correctly without the locking piece – so I’m confused. The base lock is specifically for use with the tilt-head Artisan which I have. Oh well. I still got ice cream! And it was wonderful! I will see if I can figure out how to get the bowl situated correctly next time… when I make BELGIAN CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER! Gwahahahah!

Playlist: The Legend of Zelda – Symphony of the Goddesses concert

September 27, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Cinnamon rolls (with assistance from the defender of the universe)

I’ve never made bread without using my breadmaker, and I’ve never made cinnamon rolls at all. However! Faint heart never won fair dessert, so I thought I’d give it a try today.

This recipe is from Betty Crocker Baking Basics – recipes and tips to bake with confidence, which is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. This is definitely a recipe you need to read through a few times before attempting.

Time required: 4 hours

Yields: 15 rolls

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $38.

Cost per roll: $2.54

Kitchen implements I used:

KitchenAid mixer
small sauce pan
candy thermometer
9″ x 13″ pan
rolling pin

Dough ingredients:

3½ C to 4C of all-purpose white flour (divided)
⅓ C granulated white sugar
1 TSP salt
4½ TSP fast-acting yeast
1 C milk
¼ C unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
cooking spray

Filling ingredients:

½ C granulated white sugar
2 TSP ground cinnamon
¼ C unsalted butter, softened

Glaze ingredients:

1 C icing sugar
1 TBSP butter, softened
½ TSP vanilla
1 to 2 TSP milk

Dough instructions:

1. Make the dough in the bowl for your mixer, combine: 2 C flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. (Measure out another 2 C of flour and set it aside.) Blend ingredients well with wooden spoon. It took not quite two of those little packets to get enough yeast.

2. Heat milk in a sauce pan on medium until temperature reads between 49°C and 54°C (120°F to 130°F).

3. Add warm milk, egg, and butter to dry ingredients.

4. Beat on low for 1 min, stopping to stir down sides 3 times. Everything should be moistened now.

Beat on medium for 1 min, scrape sides 2 times.

5. Now add the reserved flour, half a cup at a time, and gently beat it in with the wooden spoon. (This was about the time I remembered my KitchenAid has a bread hook, but oh well.)

According to the book, you just stir in the flour as you add it, but my dough was not absorbing the extra flour, the lump of dough kept moving around the bowl but none of the flour got sucked in. Bread dough is kind of weird, I’ve never seen it before. It’s… almost gunky at first, then it gets ropey. Hard to describe.

Anyway I stuck it back in the mixer for a minute and beat the hell out of it. Suggest you uh… find your own path to making bread. Don’t follow my path which is fraught with peril. From the bowl of flour I reserved from the original measuring, I used all but about ½ C.

6. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 5 minutes.. (What does that even mean?) I decided to put wax paper on a collapsing table, thunk the dough down, and punch the shit out of it. Why? Because I have a teeny tiny amount of counter space and it’s currently all covered in stuff I was too lazy to remove prior to starting this endeavor. In hindsight this may have not been the best idea, but the timer dinged and my 5 minutes were up. Thank God.

7. Spray a bowl with cooking spray, plop the dough in the bowl, and turn it so it gets covered in the cooking spray (I’m not clear why you do this, but that’s what the book said to do).

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (whether to cover loosely, or tightly, is a bone of contention). Leave the bowl alone for 1.5 hours in a draft-free area. I grabbed Voltron to show scale.

8. Behold! The mighty process of fermentation. (That’s what the yeast does to make the bread rise, adding the water re-activates the yeast to produce carbon dioxide, which rises.)

Unwrap the dough and press one finger into it. If the indentation remains in the dough it’s ready. I got so excited about punching the dough I forgot to do this step.

My dough hath risen, am feeling confident, half the battle is won.

Onto the filling!

Filling instructions:

9. Spray the 9″ x 13″ pan with cooking spray.

10. In a small bowl combine white sugar and cinnamon. Set aside.

11. Punch the dough to deflate the gas. (Apparently you aren’t supposed to go Chuck Norris on it, just one or two love taps is enough? Boring!)

12. Flour the counter top or wherever you intend to flatten the dough, and use your hands to spread it out.

13. Roll it into a 10″ x 15″ rectangle.

14. Spread the softened butter over surface, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mix.

15. Starting with the long side, roll the dough up like a jelly roll.

Try to get an evenly shaped roll of dough. Best of luck with that part.

16. Use a serrated knife to cut into 15 pieces. Or 13, or whatever.

17. Place the pieces into the greased pan.

Cover with plastic wrap again, and leave for 30 min to rise again.

Now it’s time to bake those bad boys.

Baking the rolls:

Pre-heat oven to 176°C / 350°F, and use centre rack.

Take the plastic wrap off the tray of rolls, and bake them for 30 minutes.

18. Remove rolls from the pan immediately and transfer to wire rack. Let cool 5 minutes.

Now all that’s left is to make the glaze and you are done. Finally!

Glaze instructions:

19. Combine icing sugar, butter, vanilla, and milk. Stir until smooth and drizzle over warm rolls.

Sit back and enjoy the results of what feels like an entire day’s work.

Verdict: God, this took forever. I think they are a little bit over done, but Boyfriend thinks they are perfect. I’d take 5 minutes off the baking time when I make them again. They tasted great.

Playlist: Song of the Hero – The Legend of Zelda, Symphony of the Goddesses

September 23, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Patty’s double chocolate peanut butter cookies

Today was a great day. I met someone I really admire (and got her autograph!), and we have company, Boyfriend’s brother stopped in for a visit. I’m told he is a master of chocolate chip cookies, so I wanted to make something a little different. I started with the chocolate chip cookie recipe my sister taught me, and improvised.

Will these cookies blow him away? Just stay right there, and find out!

Time required: 1 hour

Yields: 2 dozen or so

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $42.

Cost per cookie: $1.75

Kitchen implements I used:

KitchenAid mixer
cookie tray

Ingredients:

¾ C Golden Crisco
1¼ C light brown sugar, packed lightly
1 egg
2½ TBSP milk
1 TBSP vanilla
1¾ C flour
3 TBSP cocoa
1 TSP salt
¼ TSP cinnamon
¾ TSP baking soda
1 C peanut butter Chipits
1 C milk chocolate Chipits

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 190°C / 375°F.

2. Cream the Crisco and sugar together.

3. In a glass measuring cup combine egg, milk, and vanilla. Beat into sugar.

4. Combine flour, cocoa, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. Gradually add to wet.

5. Stir in peanut butter and chocolate chips.

6. Roll dough into balls, bake 10 min.

7. Cool cookies in pan for 2 min before transferring to wire rack to cool.

8. Pour some milk and enjoy.

Verdict: These were pretty awesome. Will definitely make these again.

Playlist: The Legend of Zelda – Symphony of the Goddesses

September 19, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Patty’s ultimate peanut butter cookies

It’s round 2 of Patty vs. Peanut Butter. Are these the cookies I’ve been waiting for? Stay tuned and find out.

I adapted this recipe from the Good Housekeeping Cookies! book, which is available on Amazon.com and Amazon.ca if you’re interested.

Time required: 1 hr

Yields: 2 dozen or so

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $54

Cost per cookie: $2.25

Kitchen implements I used:

KitchenAid mixer
cookie trays

Ingredients:

2¾ C flour
1 TSP baking powder
½ TSP baking soda
¼ TSP salt
1 C butter, softened
1 C creamy peanut butter
1 C brown sugar, packed
½ C granulated white sugar
2 TBSP corn syrup
2 TSP vanilla
2 eggs
½ C Chipits Reese’s peanut butter chips
½ C Chipits milk chocolate chips
½ C Chipits Skor toffee chips

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 190°C / 375°F.

2. In medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3. In mixer cream together butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and peanut butter (it’s a lot easier to get the peanut butter out if you lightly grease the cup first). Beat until fluffy.

4. Beat in eggs, vanilla, and corn syrup. I always mix all the wet stuff together then pour into the dough because I am lazy.

5. On low speed, add the dry mixture by thirds, beat until just combined.

6. Mix in the chips, then cover and chill dough for 30 min.

This is some seriously heavy dough.

7. Roll dough into balls and bake for 12 min. Do that fork thing if you want.

8. Cool in pan 1 min, then transfer to wire rack.

9. Pour some milk and enjoy!

Verdict: Tonight we have company, a friend who is a self-proclaimed cookie connoisseur. He tasted one of these, and decided, “It’s actually pretty much perfect.”

I really enjoyed these.

Playlist: The Legend of Zelda symphony

September 15, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Peanut butter cookies

Sometimes you find the tastiest recipes off packages in the baking aisle. These cookies were made from the directions on a bag of Hershey’s Chipits Reese peanut butter chips.

I’m enjoying a rare Saturday off and am having a lazy day. So lazy in fact, I was careless with dropping the dough on the tray and ended up with very flat cookies. Behold, peanut butter cookies made without peanut butter!

Time required: 1 hour

Yields: about 4 dozen small cookies

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $30

Cost per cookie: $0.63

Kitchen implements I used:

KitchenAid mixer
cookie tray

Ingredients:

1 C butter, softened
1 C golden brown sugar
½ C granulated white sugar
2 eggs
1½ TSP vanilla
2 C flour
1 TSP baking soda
½ TSP salt
300g package of Reese peanut butter chipits

1. Pre-heat oven to 190 °C / 375°F.

2. In mixer cream butter, brown sugar, and white sugar.

3. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

4. In a bowl combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add to wet mixture.

5. Add peanut butter chips, and drop onto cookie tray.

6. Bake around 10 minutes.

7. Cool cookies on pan (on a wire rack) for 2 min, before transferring cookies directly to wire rack.

Verdict: Not bad, but not the best peanut butter cookie I’ve eaten.

Playlist: howling cat

September 6, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Blueberry jam

Last week my sister M taught me how to make blueberry jam, the same way Grandma taught her. Am feeling very proud of myself, and my jam!

Time required: 2 days (1 hour of actual work, needs to set overnight)

Yields: six 250 mL jars of jam, or 7 cups of jam

Total cost if you have none of the tools and ingredients: about $80.00 since making jam requires an initial investment to purchase the equipment. Everything you need can be purchased online at Golda’s Kitchen, they sell the Bernardin canning starter kit for $67.25 which contains:

waterbath canner
canning rack
jar lifter
funnel
magnetic lid lifter
bubble remover/headspace gauge
4 mason jars with rings & lids
pectin
how-to canning DVD

FYI: The jars and rings can be re-used, but the lids cannot be. A 12-pack of lids costs $3.50, and you can also get extra jars and rings for a fairly cheap price.

To put the cost in perspective, once you have the equipment, to keep going you’ll need to keep buying white sugar, fruit, and the pectin which is $2.25 per package. The actual cost per jar is around $2-$3 which is amazing considering you can make DELICIOUS HOMEMADE JAM whenever you want.

Before you get started:

You don’t want to poison your nearest and dearest so listen up. Part of canning is learning how to properly seal the jar. If you screw this up your preserves may develop botulism which can be fatal.

Read a book on canning, ask your granny, consult the pros, know what you are doing!

Storage: if the seal is correct, jam can be stored for up to 6 months in a cool, dry place. Once the jam is opened it needs to be refrigerated. Any jar that did not seal correctly should be refrigerated and consumed within 2 weeks.

Spoilage: visible signs of spoilage may not appear right away, it can take time for bulging or leaking to occur. When you open a jar, watch out for discolouration, mold, or weird odors.

Sterilization: equipment must be sterilized before you put the ingredients together.

Sanitize jars in the oven, pre-heat to 108°C / 225°F and heat jars for 10 minutes, then keep in the hot oven until needed.
Sanitize lids in a pot of steaming (not boiling) water, keep in hot water until needed.
Rings do not not need to be sanitized.

Don’t tinker with the recipe. Doubling the batch or skimping on sugar will cause your jam to not set.

Ingredients:

1 package of pectin (we used Certo)
2½ C granulated white sugar (divided)
1 box frozen blueberries
1 C water

1. Place canning rack in canning pot, fill with water about halfway. Simmer and cover. Sanitized jars should be in hot oven, sanitized lids should be in hot water (see tips above).

2. In a bowl combine ¼ C white sugar and pectin. (Reserve the rest of the sugar for later.)

3. If using fresh berries, crush with a potato masher. If using frozen berries, microwave them for a minute first. You need to obtain 5 cups of crushed berries (this is not 5 cups of whole berries).

A big glass measuring bowl is helpful. Once you have enough fruit, transfer to a large pot (not your canning pot).

4. Add water to fruit.

5. Add the sugar/pectin mixture to fruit. Give it a good stir.

6. Put pot on stove and bring to a boil, then stir in remaining sugar.

Increase heat til you achieve a rolling boil (can’t stir it down). Let pot boil for 1 min, stirring often.

7. Remove fruit from heat, stir and skim for 5 minutes. See how it bunches up towards the left side? You don’t want that in your jam, gently pull it up and away and discard.

8. Place a funnel into a hot jar. Use a fresh measuring cup to spoon the jam into the jar.

9. When the jar is nearly full, use the headspace gauge. The little corners mark different heights, we filled to ¼ of an inch to the top. The jam should just touch the bottom of the gauge. (Too much space, or not enough space, affects the seal.)

10. Use the end of a measuring spoon to gently stir out air bubbles. M is braver than me, she is handling the hot jars barehanded. Wipe the rim of the jar clean when you are done. (Jam on the rim will affect the seal.)

11. Use magnetic lifter to get the hot lids onto the jars.

12. Use your finger tips to screw the ring onto the jar. You don’t want it super-tight, because the air in the jar will expand as the hot jam heats it up, and that hot air needs to be able to escape the jar, to create the vacuum seal when the jar cools.

13. Now it’s time to use the canning pot and rack. The water should be hot but not boiling yet. Use the jar lifter to set the jars onto the rack.

Use a stick to ensure you have at least one inch of water above the lids.

14. Turn up the heat until you have a full rolling boil, then cover and cook for 10 minutes.

15. Use jar lifter to remove jars from pot, and set into a lined pan. Leave room between jars for air to circulate. Let jars sit undisturbed for 24 hours. You should hear a “pop” as the jars cool.

16. The next day check the seal. (If you have sealed your jars correctly, you can pick them up by the lids without the lids coming off.) Remove the rings, the lids should be “sucked down”. Press down on the centre of the lids with your finger.

If the lid springs up after you take your finger away it did not seal. :[

17. Put on bread and enjoy!

Verdict: Making jam was very fun. I feel like a pioneer now, bring on the sod. Boyfriend was very impressed. Thank you M!! Homemade jam is also very delicious, I am enjoying some right now.

Playlist: Final Fantasy Distant Worlds

July 15, 2012 by spatulagoddess

Tarte au citron vert

Well it finally happened. I tired of looking for my truant tart pan, and bought a new one. Therefore I expect to find the old one any day now. Tonight Boyfriend lent a hand and we made a lime tart together, from the recipe used for the lemon tart, just made with limes instead.