Mulberry Jam
Michelle Underwood
We were blessed to inherit well established mulberry trees on our property. Mulberries are sweet and delicious, and make a wonderful jam. If you have access to mulberries, take the time to gather them and make some homemade jam!
- 2 pounds mulberries
- 1 pound cane sugar
- 1/2 of a lemon, juiced
- 4-5 lemon seeds
Gather 2 pounds of ripe mulberries, wash and remove stems. See notes below.
Place washed and trimmed berries in a food processor and process until well mixed and smooth (about 30 -45 seconds).
Place berries in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil for about 5 minutes and then add 1 pound of sugar and mix well, stirring frequently. Cook on low for about 25 minutes. The liquid should reduce by about 50% during this process.
Continue cooking the berries and add juice from 1/2 a lemon. Also add in about 5 lemon seeds. The seeds will help your jam to thicken without adding pectin. Cook for an additional 15 minutes.
Remove jam from heat and allow to cool. Store in Mason jars in the fridge. You can can it or freeze it if you would like. I chose to just share some and eat the rest.
To gather our mulberries, we placed a clean cloth under our tree and shook the branches. The ripe mulberries fall to the ground. We then gather up the cloth and pour them into a large bowl. Once the berries are gathered, we lay them on cookie sheets and sort the leaves and stick out. Rinse them well and wash with a low concentration white vinegar solution. Be gentle... the really ripe ones mush easy. To remove stems I used my kitchen shears and cut the tip with the stem off.
Everything I read about mulberries said to remove the stems before cooking. This is very time consuming. I removed the stems from 2/3's of the batch and left the stems on the remaining 1/3. I couldn't notice the stems in my batch. Next time I may leave half and see what happens. Removing mulberry stems is a great time to put on an audio book, grab a glass of iced tea, and sit at your kitchen table and just enjoy the peaceful monotony.
We serve ours on homemade bread with grass fed butter.
I found the recipe for this jam at https://ladyleeshome.com/how-to-make-mulberry-jam/