About a year ago, I discovered that you can make freezer jam. It’s like baby steps to canning and totally ingenious! Summer is a perfect time to try this as great fresh fruit is often priced so low. When I found peaches on sale at 3lbs for $1, peach freezer jam was an obvious choice for my first jamming endeavor!!

into all that…

using this wonderful stuff….

Unlike with the other types of pectin listed in other recipes I’ve seen, this Pomona’s Universal Pectin doesn’t require the crazy high amounts of sugar. Instead of the standard 4-5 cups, we were able to use much healthier recipes!

We made one batch of peach jam and one of peach-pineapple jam. Both are SO yummy and there is less than 1/4 C of sugar in all those jars!!

Here’s our ‘recipes’:

Peach jam

just slightly over 4 C mashed peaches (boiled for 2 minutes)

1/4 C lemon juice

1/4 C agave nectar

1/4 C granulated sugar

3/4 C water (boiled and blended with 4t pectin + 6-7t calcium water)

Peach-pineapple jam

1 8oz can crushed pineapple drained

just under 4 C mashed peaches

just under 1/4 C lemon juice

1/2 C honey

3/4 C water (boiled and blended with 4t pectin + 5t calcium water)

So, there you have it! 3 cheers for freezer jam!

1. It’s quick & easy–

Many freezer jams are ideal because they don’t require any cooking. Peaches apparently don’t do quite as well raw as some others, so we did have cooking time involved–but it was very minimal (like 2 minutes). We managed to crank out the two batches in less than 2 hours–pretty good considering it was our first jamming adventure and we had the three littles to look after too. And, speaking of ease, you don’t even need canning jars! Any little freeze-able container will do.

2. It’s better for you–

fresh fruit, less sugar, lower calories, no high fructose corn syrup (and we can experiment with a variety of things you can’t get in the store….think mango, kiwi-pineapple, etc.)

3. It’s less expensive–

Good jams & jellies are rarely on-sale and even then it seems like it’s never for less than $3.50/ 16 oz. jar. Then, the ‘healthier’/low-sugar options not only cost more, but come in smaller sizes. 
Instead, we got our peaches & pectin for about $6.50. So for a little more than $3 a piece, we each had around 40 ounces of jam which goes in the freezer and keeps for up to a year! Totally awesome!!

Have YOU made freezer jam before? What’s your favorite?