Cantaloupe Jam

We had a fabulous melon season. Lots of very high quality melons were grown on our farm. But, sadly, not all the melons were sellable so when life gives you too many melons you eventually make jam (and freeze them as well but we already discussed that here on this blog).

I have had this melon jam idea in my head for a couple of years now but until a few weeks ago I did not get around to making such a jam.But faced with a growing amount of beginning to fester must be used ASAP and I already have filled the freezer with more than enough frozen melon I needed to do something so I looked around the web for a good melon jam recipe and found...none. Not a single melon jam recipe out there. I did find a couple preserve recipes but I had no interest in putting slices of melon into jars filled with a simple syrup. I wanted a real spreadable jam.

So I had to invent a recipe which I did. Fortunately the pectin box had a basic recipe for all jams which is 4 cups fruit, 4 cups sugar and pectin (and maybe some lemon juice). Since I had both regular pectin and low/no sugar pectin (and a lot of both) and a lot of melons I experimented. I found the best results with the low/no sugar pectin and around 6 to 7 cups of fruit an 2 cups of sugar. It had the best flavor, sugar to fruit ratio and set up well. The jam made with regular pectin always set up poorly, even when I paid attention to measurements and used exactly 4 cups of fruit, sugar, etc., etc..

I I used Organic sugar and regular cane sugar and found little difference in taste or how well the jam set up.

For flavoring I used salt and vanilla extract along with 1/4 cup of with either lemon or lime juice plus a TBL of butter which originally I used to keep the foaming to a minimum but used more butter because it added great flavor

so here is the master recipe
4 to 7 cups fruit processed to a smooth foam in a food processor (use only 4 if using regular pectin)
2 to 4 cups sugar
2 TBL vanilla extract
1 TBL butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 lime or lemon juice
1 pkg pectin

Prepare according pectin direction than fill hot jars that have been boiled for at least 10 minutes. put on lids and rings and than put in a hot water bath for 15 minutes. Remove from canner and put on a clean towel and let cool at least 12 hours. When cool remove rings, write on lid or label what's in the jar and the date and put in a cabinet.