In my journey to clean out the freezer to make room for this year’s pickings I came across a container of apricots patiently waiting to be made into jam. Along with the apricots, I had a package of beautiful fresh blueberries in the refrigerator.
I began to wonder how successful it would be to mix the apricots with the blueberries for my jam. After some online searching I found a handful of possible recipes. As seems to be typical, I didn’t really like any of the ideas I found so I made up my own recipe using the Sure Jell pectin directions as a guide.
Although I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for by way of apricots and blueberries together, I did come across an interesting Blueberry jam recipe with Basil. I have been making a concerted effort to use more herbs in my canning so I threw in a handful of chopped basil for an exciting little twist. The results were prizewinning! I took some of this jam to our 4th of July celebrations and came home with an empty bottle!
How to make Blueberry Apricot Jam With Basil:
4 Cups Apricots, finely chopped
4 Cups Blueberries, lightly mashed
1/4 Cup Lemon Juice
1 Box Powder Pectin
7 Cups Sugar
1 Tablespoon Butter
1/4 Cup Basil, finely chopped
Combine fruit, lemon juice and pectin in a large pot. Bring mixture to a full rolling boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Quickly add sugar and return to a full rolling boil, add butter. Boil exactly 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, skim off any foam. Ladle into prepared jars, process in boiling water canner for 10 minutes.
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Blueberry Apricot Jam With Basil.
Jayme Payne blogs at Dreaming of Poultry. Do you have a recipe post or kitchen-related story to share on the Farm Bell blog?
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justdeborah2002 says:
Definitely an interesting combo…but I have a question.
Why are the jars upside down after processing?
On August 25, 2011 at 7:34 am
Renee says:
I was wondering that myself!
On August 25, 2011 at 11:01 am
whaledancer says:
That sounds tasty. I do have a couple of questions. At what point do you add the basil? And is the butter simply for flavor, or do you need it for proper processing?
On August 25, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Jayme Payne says:
Sorry to be unclear, here are the answers to your questions:
1- I added the chopped basil after the sugar was completely dissolved.
2- The butter is used to help reduce foaming and is 100% optional.
3- To answer the question about the upside down bottles I will have to confess a major sin. I don’t typically process my jam in a water bath (because I am lazy) I do understand that I should. However, if I put the jam into the bottles while it is still boiling hot and quickly turn the bottles upside down the heat from the jam will seal the lids. If the lids don’t seal (they almost always do) then I will process them.
On August 25, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Rachel says:
Turing the jars upside dow is how my mother made jam my entire life and no one ever got sick. That’s how I make it too. In my opinion, all of us wouldn’t be here if doing things “the old fashioned way” were so deadly because it would have killed all of our ancestors generations ago!
On August 29, 2011 at 10:08 am