Tara’s Wild Blueberry Creamsicle Spiced Jam

Dan    Ask Dan     breakfast, calgary, cooking, jam, Kick The KD, learning, Tara, thoughts

What you’ll need…

2 cups frozen wild blueberries

1/2 cup cranberry & concorde grape juice

1/2 TSP vanilla

1/8-1/4 TSP pure orange extract

1 1/2 TBSP cornstarch

This jam, which took us all of 20 minutes during class, took me 45 minutes. Forty five minutes! What is up with that? I’m sure if anyone else tried this, it would take them 25 minutes, tops. I modified the recipe as follows:

1. Mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup juice until well blended.

2. Combine all ingredients in a small pot, including cornstarch/juice mixture and remaining juice.

3. Bring to a simmer on medium-high heat.

4. Reduce heat to medium and stir occasionally about 15 minutes or until desired thickness reached.

5. Remove from heat and let cool.

6. Transfer to an air tight container and let chill in fridge.

My modifications: Most of these ingredients I used because they’re what we had in our house, like the frozen fruit and the juice. I omitted the sugar to make it healthier, lessened the vanilla, and after discovering orange extract in our cupboard, decided that its tartness would go well with sweeteness of the blueberries and compliment the cranberry. Plus, vanilla + orange = creamsicle. Booyah! Although it was sweet enough for me without the sugar, I think most people would enjoy it with a bit of honey. Oooh, and cinnamon. If this jam was on shelves, it would be in the gourmet section. Well, it would be if it wasn’t for…

My mistakes: In class, we added the cornstarch to the other ingredients immediately (contrary to what the recipe suggests) and it turned out great. Looking to save time, I decided to heat the ingredients and then add the cornstarch straight in. Note: this did NOT save time. After adding only half the cornstarch, I soon found myself wondering why the jam wasn’t thickening, and why it contained deep purple rubbery chunks full of powder. Turns out you have to add cornstarch when your mixture is cold, or, as the original recipe suggests, mix it with water first. Lovely. By the time I had removed what I could from the jam in the way of chunks, it had started to thicken on its own. So I added the remaining tbsp of cornstarch to water and poured it into my already semi-thick jam. It thickened immediately and was finally ready to go.

All in all, a successful modification (minus the disgusting chunks which I could not completely get rid of).

By the way, I ate the whole pot of jam for dessert. Since my modifications made it basically just fruit [in altered form], I didn’t even feel guilty! But I did feel full!

Yields 2 1/2 cups of jam

Total cook time…20-45 min

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