Recipe: Haskatoon Berry Freezer Jam

We just harvested a huge bowl of haskap berries (also known as honeyberries), and our first ever Saskatoon berry harvest. I’ve made jam from haskaps before, but I found the unique flavour of the berry got a bit lost once it was cooked and mixed with sugar. This incredibly simple recipe adds that extra layer of flavour to make this jam exceptional.

Makes: 4 x 250mL jars when using 4 cups of sugar.

Ingredients:

1 cup Saskatoon berries
3 cups Haskap berries
3 - 4 cups White sugar (you can use less, or use another sweetener)
2 tsp lemon juice

Directions:
1. Wash your berries and pick out any stems or leaves.

2. Combine the berries and sugar into a medium-sized pot, and simmer over medium to medium-high heat. Stir often. Like all jam, you are going to get some foam, keep an eye on the pot, you don’t want it to boil over. Whenever I use Saskatoons, I usually use a potato masher to break the berries down a bit as they cook.

3. After about 10-15 minutes, the foam will die down, and the mixture will look glossy. Add the lemon juice.

4. Now taste it. Is it sweet enough? Could it use a bit more acid? Maybe you want to throw some cinnamon in?

5. Pour the jam into clean jars. Once cooled a bit, this jam needs to go into the fridge (it’ll last about 3 weeks) or freezer (closer to a year). It’s important you don’t water bath can and store this jam on the shelf - the acidity levels are untested, and you do not want to mess with botulism.

Notes

• I skipped pectin and this jam set pretty well.

• You can really get creative with this recipe because it’s freezer jam. Try adding different fruits, spices, herbs, and even alcohol (I’m thinking basil might be nice in this jam, or maybe gin?).

• Use this jam on toast, atop a cheesecake or on ice cream, in vinaigrette or BBQ sauce (Saskatoon berries love bison). Personally, I am going to squirrel away one jar to use on top of brie at Christmas time.