Naturally Sweet Food in Jars: 100 Preserves Made with Coconut, Maple, Honey, and More

217 Pages·2016·28.87 MB·English

naturally sweet
food jars
100 PRESERVES MADE WITH
COCONUT, MAPLE, HONEY, AND MORE
Marisa McClellan
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
STEVE LEGATO
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Copyright © 2016 by Marisa McClellan
Photographs copyright © 2016 by Steve Legato
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ISBN 978-0-7624-5778-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015954455
E-book ISBN 978-0-7624-5826-4
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Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing
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Edited by Kristen Green Wiewora
Food and prop styling by Carrie Ann Purcell
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This book is dedicated to
my dad, Morris, who taught me
through example how to turn an
avocation into a vocation.
3
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CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 6
HONEY-SWEETENED RECIPES 21
MAPLE-SWEETENED RECIPES 65
AGAVE–SWEETENED RECIPES 95
COCONUT SUGAR-SWEETENED RECIPES 129
FRUIT JUICE CONCENTRATE–
SWEETENED RECIPES 153
DRIED FRUIT–SWEETENED RECIPES 181
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 205
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INTRODUCTION
I
n my early canning years, I followed all the familiar canning rules.
I made big batches and used cup after cup of sugar, just the way the trusted books
and websites told me I should. It always set, and it kept its color beautifully.
However, I came to the conclusion that as much as I enjoyed the process of making jam
with all that granulated sugar, I didn’t actually feel good about regularly eating what I
had made.
I started exploring ways to make preserves that I liked eating and using on a daily
basis. I made my batch sizes smaller and began integrating an array of different sweet-
eners into my canning practice. I discovered that while there are trade-offs (softer set
and shorter shelf life) to preserving with such sweeteners as honey, coconut sugar, and
maple (syrup or sugar); the resulting jams, pickles, and fruit butters were flavorful, held
their quality over time, and were far more welcome in my regular diet than those white
sugar–heavy preserves I had been making.
I started sharing these naturally sweetened preserves on my blog, Food in Jars, and the
feedback was immediate and positive. There was a growing community of other canners
who loved having a homemade pantry, but didn’t want it to be so heavily dependent on
granulated sugar. I heard from people who loved the act of preserving, but wanted to
stress flavor and nuance over unrelenting sweetness. Parents who were on the search for
healthy, kid-pleasing jams for sandwiches and yogurt cups got in touch saying thank you.
And Paleo and Whole30 followers responded in droves, happy to have found ways to
enjoy the occasional taste of their favorite condiments without resorting to a cheat day.
Those early recipes, and the responses they generated, became the inspiration for
this volume.
I came to this book with two basic aspirations. The first is to present a goodly num-
ber of recipes that are naturally sweetened versions of old favorites. I converted my
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favorite Tomato Jam (page 40) to work with honey, and my husband’s beloved Sweet
Corn Salsa (page 118) is here, sweetened lightly with agave nectar. I also wanted to bal-
ance those classics with preserves designed expressly to show off the alternative sweet-
eners featured here. For instance, the Apple Date Butter (page 188) and the Kumquats
in Honey Syrup (page 59) are made better and more delicious thanks to the dried fruit
and honey that sweeten them.
The most natural way to organize these recipes seemed to be by each individual
sweetener. Summer and fall will always be the busiest time for canning, but you’ll find
that there are plenty of recipes here that can be made in winter and spring. Within each
sweetener section, the recipes are roughly ordered by season (all bets are off when it
comes to California, Texas, and Florida), so that you can find canning projects appro-
priate for whatever the month might be.
Finally, I varied the types of recipes within each sweetener section so that there’s a
fairly wide array of preserve styles within each of them. I hope you enjoy what you find!
THE SWEETENERS
This book features preserves that are sweetened with honey, coconut sugar, maple (in
both syrup and sugar forms), agave nectar, fruit juice concentrates, and dried fruits.
These sweeteners all contain either sucrose, glucose, or fructose, which means that we
are still working with sugars, albeit less refined ones. I chose not to use stevia, xylitol,
or artificial sweeteners (such as Splenda) in these recipes because I find that when these
sweeteners are used, the finished products aren’t exceptionally tasty nor do they keep
very well. If you are on a diet that requires you to avoid all added sugars, even the most
natural, I recommend looking into the no-sugar recipes offered by Ball, Certo, Mrs.
Wages, or Pomona’s Pectin, which utilize these artificial sweeteners.
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COOKWARE
When you’re picking out pots and pans to use for preserving, the most important thing
is that your cookware is nonreactive. Because jams, fruit butters, pickles, and other
home preserves are all highly acidic foods (those acid levels are what make them safe
for canning in a boiling water bath), you should be using enameled or stainless steel,
enameled cast iron, or anodized aluminum. Those metals do not react with the acids
in the food and will ensure that your preserves retain their color and flavor. Reactive
cookware, made from aluminum or bare cast iron, can muddy the colors and impart a
metallic flavor to your preserve, rendering it inedible. Traditional copper confiture pans
should not be used with the recipes in this book. Copper is a reactive metal, but when
fruit is mixed with sugar, the sugar acts as a buffer and prevents any metallic leaching.
The small amounts of natural sweeteners used in these recipes are not enough to
prevent that possible leaching. I also like to avoid nonstick cookware because extended
periods of high heat cooking shorten the lifespan of the nonstick coating and make it
less effective.
Here are the pieces I find most useful:
A DUTCH OR FRENCH OVEN. I have two of these relatively low, wide pots and
cook the bulk of my preserves in them. Mine are a 51⁄2-quart/5.2 L Le Creuset and an
8-quart/7.6 L All-Clad. These give me the ability to choose the pot that best fits my
batch. Know also that when it comes to the shape of your pot, wider is better. It increas-
es the surface area of the jam and makes for shorter cooking times.
A LARGE SKILLET. I use a 12-inch/30.5 cm stainless-steel skillet anytime I’m making
a very small batch of jam like the Skillet Raspberry Jam on page 104, because its wide
surface and low walls shorten the cooking time.
A LARGE ROASTING PAN WITH A 4- TO 5-QUART/3.8 TO 4.7 L CAPACITY. There
are several oven-roasted preserves in this book, and you’ll need a large, nonreactive
roasting pan to make them. Oven-safe glass is a good bet that is very affordable, to boot.
I also have an enameled cast-iron roaster that works beautifully for these preserves, but
is an investment if you don’t already have one.
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A SLOW COOKER. A handful of the recipes in this book are made in a slow cooker. It
allows you to cook the water out of the fruit, concentrating the natural sweetness and
fiber. This produces a sweet, spreadable preserve that needs only the lightest amount of
additional sweetener. These recipes are scaled to best fit a 4-quart/3.8 L cooker, but a
6-quart/5.7 L will also work. Just know that using a larger cooker may shorten the cook-
ing time.
A LARGE STOCKPOT. A lot of people think that they can only can in a dedicated
enamel pot with the specialized rack, but that’s just not true. Most often, my canning
pot is a 12-quart/11.4 L stainless-steel stock pot with a silicone trivet resting in the bot-
tom. Any large pot will work as a canner, as long as it’s deep enough to fully submerge
the jars for the entirety of the canning process and still have room for the water to
boil. If you do choose to set up your own canning pot, don’t skip the rack. It allows the
boiling water to fully circulate and protects the jars from the direct heat of the burner,
which in turn helps to prevent breakage.
GEAR
These are the things I reach for nearly every time I pull out my canning pot.
CANNING FUNNEL. They come in plastic, glass, and stainless steel and are invaluable
when it comes to filling jars with hot preserves.
JAR LIFTERS. These curved tongs are designed to fit snugly around the jars, allowing
you to move them in and out of the water without burning yourself. Remember, the
curved end goes around the jar and the plastic handle is what you grip. It’s not uncom-
mon to see people use them upside down.
SILICONE SPATULAS. Everyone has a favorite stirring tool, and mine are all-silicone
spatulas that can go in the dishwasher. I have several so that there’s always a clean one
when I need it.
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