Oh Yes You Can Make Elderberry Jam
It's easy, about 30 minutes for a peanut butter jar full of jam.
SAFETY FIRST:
Other berries look like elderberries but they are not. Please be sure you are picking elderberries. If you're not sure don't pick 'em.
The roots, the stems, the leaves and the berries on an elderberry bush can all make you sick.
The ONLY part of an elderberry bush that will not make you sick is the RIPE berries. No kidding. How do you know when the berries are ripe? When the elderberries are a deep, dark purple they are ripe. Also when the elderberries are ripe they come off the stem very easily. The elderberries are small and not so easy to pick and it would be easier to just grab a bunch and use them stem and all.
DO NOT include any stems or leaves with the elderberries you are picking because they can make you sick. Pick only the ripe berries.
The first photo is an elderberry bush in bloom before the flowers turn into berries.
The second photo shows what the elderberries look like on the bush, often there is a mix of ripe and unripe elderberries.
You will need 4 measuring cups full of ripe elderberries to make about one peanut butter jar of jam.
Pour the 4 cups of elderberries into a bowl and stir them around with your hand.
Please remove as many of the unripe berries as you can and dispose of them.
You can see some still green elderberries in the photo.
When you have removed all of the unripe elderberries you are ready for the next step.
Can you see the small piece of stem that I missed that is still in the bowl?
Please remove.
This is a Foley Food Mill No. 101.
This is what I use to process the elderberries into jam. There are other products out there that do the same thing. If you do a search on Bing for food mill for berries you will get a bunch of choices.
They save lots of time over a potato masher and they make it really easy to separate out the seeds for a seed-free jam.
Put the Food Mill on top of a pot. Pour the elderberries one cup at a time into the Food Mill then turn the handle clockwise until the elderberries are pulverized. Do this until all 4 cups of elderberries are processed.
The second photo shows what comes out of the food mill. You may need to remove some of the seed mash to make it easier to turn the handle to process more elderberries.
This is what comes out of the Food Mill, it makes a very nice jam.
When all the elderberries have been through the Food Mill, add 1 cup of table sugar and stir it in.
Next add 1 tablespoon of corn starch and stir it in. This thickens the jam.
Now you are ready to cook the mixture. Set the burner temperature to just below medium and heat the mixture for 16 minutes. Please stir the mixture while heating it so it does not burn. How much heating depends on your stove and the size pot you use. If you heat the jam too much it is still good but it will be too thick so next time you can either reduce the burner temperature or reduce the heating time and the jam
will be less thick. Getting the jam to the consistency you want might take a few tries but that's okay because it means you will just have to eat more delicious jam.
This recipe should work with other berries but the times might be different, try it and see.
Here is what the finished jam looks like.
It will take awhile to cool down, when it does pour it into a jar.
Please keep it refrigerated so it does not spoil.