Christmas Calendar 2013 Day 15 - Christmas Jam 2013

As usual no Christmas without making my very own Christmas jam using Danish blackberries (from an work ex-colleague´s garden and freezer), vanilla and cognac. I really appreciate, that I can "order" ready-to-use blackberries from my ex-colleagues freezer for use in my cooking pot :-) Do you have the same kind of wonderful colleagues at work ? It is a privilege to have such working colleagues as well former colleagues  :-)

As usual I fill my different types of home-made jams into small glasses, as they serves as an excellent gifts to friends and some wonderful colleagues. I know from myself, how I like to receive a glass of home-made as an eatable gift. It gives a wonderful warming sensation to your heart, when you receive such a home-made gift, as you know some one has spend some of their time making this gift to you.

This year I have made a little twist to the method of jam making using a tip from another work colleague. The tip is sugar the sugar into caramel before adding the fruit.
Making the caramel was easy, but when you add in the fruit, I was standing where looking into something, which look like a major disaster !!!! The water from the fruit turned the entire cooking pot into an active volcano with boiling water everywhere. And all the caramel pieces are like solid rocks. And you are left with the feeling of failieur !!!! Who wants to eat jam with HUGE caramel lumps with the size of a stone ??? Well, as the jam slowly is brought back to the boiling point again, the caramel lumps are melting and the jam look normal again :-)

I am submitting this recipe on Christmas Jam in the wonderful monthly blogging event called "Tea Time Treats" being managed  Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate from What Kate Baked. And for December Kate has selected festive foodie gifts as the theme for the month of Christmas, where small as well big presents plays an important part.

Christmas Jam 2013:

• 1800 g (Danish) blackberries - defrosted
• 1000 g sugar
• 1 vanilla pod
• 10 cl cognac
• 22 g gelling powder (citrus pectin) dry-mixed with 60 g sugar to easy the dispersion

1. Start by adding the sugar into the cooking pot over medium heat. Turn the sugar into a caramel mass, while you keep stirring in it.
2. Add the blackberries into the caramel mass. It will look strange.
3. Add the vanilla corn as well as vanilla pod (cut into smaller pieces). I never remove the vanilla pod from my jam.
4. As the jam gets hot again, add in the pectin (dry-mixed sugar), while you stir the jam very well to avoid lump formation.
5. Bring the fruit to the boiling point and let it boil for 2 minutes
6. Remove the jam from the heat and add in the cognac to the jam.
7. Prepare the jam glasses by filling them with boiling water. I do not use any preservatives in my home-made jam, so this is important to increase shelf-life of your jam. Another thing you can do is to store the jam cold afterwards. As the jam is made from 2 parts of fruit and 1 part of sugar, the sugar content is not high enough to preserve the jam.
8. Fill the glass with jam and close the glass.
9. Store the jam cold.