When I tell people I make my own jam, I get varied reactions. “My grandma used to do that!” “That sounds so hard!” “Won’t you poison yourself?” and of course, “Can I have some?” The answer to the last one is generally yes, depending how much I’ve got, and how much I’m hoarding it. Once I tasted the plum sauce I made last year, I turned into Gollum and didn’t let a single jar out of my sight! I’m going to do an extra-large batch this year, but I digress.
I want to encourage any bride-to-be, waiting-to-be-engaged person, heck, the whole world to make their own preserves. I’m just picking on you wedding-y types, because A) this is a wedding blog, and B) jam seems to be a hot favour! The process isn’t scary (follow the recipe, and you won’t poison people) or dangerous (if learn from my mistakes, and always wear long sleeves. Hot sugar spatters hurt!) and is a lot of fun. I learned a lot from my mum who worked so hard every summer, canning up all the produce our garden produced. It was a lot!
I want to recommend a couple books that I think will help people looking to dip their jars in the pot:
The Complete Book of Small-Batch Preserving
This one is great, because you don’t end up with gallons of jam. I love making it, but Cinnamon Buns and I don’t actually eat much jam ourselves. I just enjoy the process! This is the book with the plum sauce recipe that anyone with access to plums needs to try.
I got this one from Cinnamon Buns for Christmas, and oh my goodness. This is the book everyone needs to read. Read the intro! Read it all!! This woman could be me. She shares my same dislike of using pectin—this is the first book I found that agrees with me about that. Mum never used pectin, why should I? Jam should have two ingredients: fruit and sugar. Three if you include water! Besides, recipes with pectin make way more jam out of the same amount of fruit. Economical, but you’re basically diluting the taste! That little soap box-part of me aside, the recipes are all delicious-sounding, arranged by season, and it is just a beautiful book. I can’t wait to get a few authentic jam spatters on it!
Small-Batch Preserving has helped me a lot in the past few years, but Liana Krissoff seems to be my canning-sister-separated-at-birth, if her book is anything to go by. Go buy! We’ll need these skills when ye greate apocalypse comes. 
Or, if you just want cute, tasty favours for your wedding.
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