Curious about making jam in a bread machine? Here’s one woman’s experience trying it!
Most of the time, I make jam on my turquoise, 45 year old, electric stove. I’ve also made jam on a camp stove, on an induction burner, on a plain gas stove and even on a high-powered commercial gas range. And now, I’m someone who is making jam in a bread machine.
Several months ago, I spotted this post on the King Arthur Flour blog, in which they make a batch of strawberry jam in a Zojirushi bread machine. Being that I’m fascinated by all things having to do with jam making (don’t tell me you didn’t notice), I determined that this was something I wanted to try. In the interest of science, of course.
I got in touch with the folks at Zojirushi and they very nicely agreed to give me a review unit so that I could see how this whole bread machine jam thing worked. It arrived on my birthday (which was more than a month ago now) and I spent at least a week circling it warily, uncertain whether I wanted to trust my fruit to an automated machine that wouldn’t let me control the heat source.
Finally I unswaddled it from boxes and styrofoam, mashed up two cups of strawberries and got to work. The instructions that come with the Zojirushi say to combine 2 cups of crushed berries, 3/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. For the first round, I followed the instructions exactly and cooked the jam without any additional pectin.
Fruit, sugar and lemon juice go into the pan. Then you close the lid and set it to the jam setting (don’t be fooled by the 3:45 time in the picture above, I took that before I set it run the jam cycle. It only takes 1:20 to make jam in the Zojirushi). When the cooking time is up, the machine issues a couple of friendly beeps so that you can rush over and check on your jam (that is, if you weren’t hovering very nearby, occasionally lifting the lid a little to peek at the progress).
So here’s the good news. This machine, which was designed to bake bread, makes perfectly adequate jam. It gets quite hot, the paddles keep the jam moving to prevent any scorching and it’s dead easy to use. If you’re the type who likes to freeze fruit and make small batches of jam throughout the year, making your jam in a Zojirushi is a really good option. However, it has a major flaw as a jam maker and that is that with the lid closed, you’re just never going to get the necessary amount of evaporation to get a really thick jammy jam.
I did one batch without pectin (sorry, no pictures of the jam with pectin, I knocked it over just after pouring it into the jar and splattered my kitchen entirely in sticky fruit spray) and one with and both remained stubbornly runny and without the body that a good jam should have (though the batch with 2 teaspoons of powdered pectin did firm up more than the batch without).
The picture below pairs a stove cooked jam (on the left) with the jam cooked in this bread machine. You can see the difference in the body of the jam. The stove top jam reduced by more than 1/3 during cooking, resulting in a thick-set, glossy jam. The bread machine jam on the right is juicier and has saturated the bread with its syrup. Not a bad thing, but an imperfect thing to use on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It would be perfect stirred into yogurt or drizzled on ice cream though.
I will say that I’ve been absolutely blown away by the quality of the bread that the Zojirushi makes. Of course I couldn’t resist using it to bake up a few loaves while it was hanging out in my kitchen and wow. We haven’t bought bread in weeks thanks to this machine.
What a unique option for a breadmaker–make the bread and the jam to eat on it! My first grape jam making experience was horrid–it came out looking like muddy water!! Thankfully, I’ve improved much since then! I’d love to try making jam in a breadmaker though….
My husband gets on an only ‘homemade bread’ kick a couple of times a year where we aren’t allowed to buy store-bought bread and only made bread at home! We could have homemade toast and jam with this!! Interesting machine for sure!
I started last summer with jams, and now I’ve added chutneys, soups and stocks to my line up. Pickled something or other is my goal for this summer.
The first time I made jam was at a canning party. Before this, I’d only ever enjoyed the “fruits” of my friend’s labor but either she got fed up with all of us mooching her jam or finally decided that it was better to “teach a (wo)man to fish (or make her own jam)” than to keep handing it out. We made strawberry jam and then made an amazing margarita jelly. It was a fun and tasty night!
I started making jam when I found your site. My first shot at it was last year – making a blackberry jam and it came out well – a little too sticky, but delicious nonetheless. 🙂 I still have many canning jars I plan on using soon!
I’ve never made jam! I have no story to tell other than, I’d love this bread machine to start making some. I need something to push me into it…
Cheers,
Martina
I have not made jam myself, this is my year to do it. I remember as a child my grandmother making the most wonderful strawberry jam. This method looks intriguing to me.
My favorite memory of making jam is with my grandmother (who was a crazy canner..she would can anything). She always grew strawberries every year and we would pick them ourselves and spend an entire weekend canning strawberry jam. That was over 20 years ago. I am 29 now and miss her everyday. She died when I was 10 and sadly we only made jam together a few times.
I’ve never made jam before because I’ve always been working and I’ve never had time. But hopefully this fall I’ll start to be home with my daughter, and I’d love to try it!
We’ve picked strawberries every summer since we got married and my husband asked me for years to make homemade strawberry jam. I was completely intimidated by the idea and never tried it until I saw an episode of Good Eats with Alton Brown on the Food Network. He made blueberry jam. I recorded the program and watched it carefully and I said to my husband, “I can do that!” And I have. This is my 6th summer canning and I love it.
I admit that most of my jam-making thus far has involved reading about jam-making . . . but this will be the summer I actually attempt it! But bread-making – – – I do that a few times a week. By hand.
So this is a giveaway I am doubly excited about!
I’ve only made jam once. A friend had given me a bunch of jalapenos and I made a jalapeno jam that co-workers were all but beating down my door to get a jar.
Last year, a friend and I realized that if we wanted to do strawberries and cherries from the local farm, we’d have to do them on the same weekend. Unforeseen circumstances caused us to pick, cook, and process all of this fruit in one day… at least 30 pounds of berries PLUS some other fruits for the recipes we wanted to make (rhubarb, oranges, etc). We vowed not to ever do that again… one fruit per weekend!
you have inspired me to use my own blackberries when they ripen – going beyond tossing them on cereal – making jam so I can enjoy them this winter too!
The first time I made strawberry rhubarb jam was an experience I’ll never forget. It turned out too thick and almost chewy. I called it “fruit roll up in a jar.” My specialty is pickles & jelly but your blog has inspired me to try my hand at jam again this summer. Thanks!
I have always wanted to can my own food. With years of bringing up my boys, having two to three jobs a week and just life in general getting in the way, it seems, I never had the time. Now my sons are grown up, my life had mellowed out, I thought I would give it a try. My first try was Marissa’s tomato jam……came out great but strange taste for jam so I use it like a barbeque sauce. With the small batch recipes I have tried the vanilla blueberry which was published as vanilla strawberry on Food in Jars….just a variation on the theme.Came out great too…….now I a hooked! Guess what everyone is getting for holiday gifts.. Would love to try that bread machine though for jam as well as bread……oh the pounds…..not of the bread but on me!HA HA HA!
Melody
Back in the summer of 1996, I decided I MUST make strawberry jam, and it MUST be from freshly-picked berries. I went out picking at 6 a.m. one Thursday and worked all day in the 90-degree heat. I was already three days past my due date. My enormous belly didn’t hamper my work in the fields or in the kitchen. My daughter was born a week later.
Just recently discovered your website… After a fiasco bout of trying to make crockpot apricot jam without my tried-&-true recipe. I won’t be doing THAT again… Ever! To add insult to injury (scorched apricot jam), my dishwasher malfunctioned that day on the dry cycle, overheated, and melted everything plastic inside, including the flatware rack and the lower spray arm. Some days, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed… But it could have been MUCH worse: the interior was stainless steel, so no fire. We still have a house (without a dishwasher) and the stink only took 3 or 4 days to dissipate. 🙂
I started making strawberry rhubarb jam because I love rhubarb. My family, not so much. But they discovered that the rhubarb gives the strawberries a nice freshness without being too tart, and it is now a family favorite.
We finally had a summer day today on the first day of summer. It has rained and rained this year. More than usual, even for Portland. So, the strawberries are late; and the raspberries will be late and blackberries? Well, nothing can really stop blackberries, can it? Which means: no jam so far. When the berries arrive, the jam will be freezer jam because of its “fresh” flavor. Not like Mom used to make but still my favorite way to “jam.”
i made jam in a field once with a camp stove and many 10 year olds hovering around me waiting to stir 🙂
After watching Laura Calder (‘French Food at Home’) slather tomato jam on a piece of savory french toast, I had to make a batch. I waited patiently for months while my tomatoes grew. Delicious!
We have been making jam for about a year now and we have only made it on the stove top. And now that seems pretty boring compared to making it in a bread machine. Would love the chance to win one to try it in. Thanks!
I had a huge crop of jalapeno peppers last year, and used a few making cranberry jalapeno jam, which was wonderful. I gave it as gifts and everyone wants it again. Easy peasy – and fun!
I would love to try it but will probably stick to bread in my bread machine 😀
I’m totally new to the jam-making thing but am seriously hooked. Already have a dozen pints of strawberry, raspberry and peach in the pantry with 3 more packs of jars waiting for me to pick up from the hardware store. My story is that my almost-3-year-old daughter will literally dive into her morning toast and suck the jam off the surface of her bread… but only if it’s homemade jam 🙂
Mmmm, how fun and what a great giveaway! Well, one of my first jam-making experiences as an adult was when I wanted to make jam using one of my Mom’s age old recipes, but I didn’t want all that sugar in it so I just reduced the sugar as I saw necessary… and well….. alas I did nto end up with jam 🙂 But I have learned from my mistakes and am excited to keep learning how to preserve more of the local bounties of fruit in my area!!
I don’t have any great awe inspiring preserve stories. I have only canned salsa, a horribly gone wrong batch of pickles and once a strawberry rhubarb jam. I make freezer jam mostly, but to me that is hardly ‘making’ it. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes great, but I feel like I am cheating if it doesn’t need a water bath. Kind of like if you are going to make a homemade pie crust you wouldn’t put in canned, store bought pie filling? I love to be in the kitchen doing tedious things so I plan on jamming it up this season. I’d love to tell people I can make jam in a bread machine. 🙂
My 5yr old and I went Strawberry picking and I made my first jam this past Friday. I used Pomona’s Pectin. I wasn’t sure if I did it right so I called their jamline at 7:40 pm to ask for help and let it ring a bit before thinking who’s really going to answer this late and on a Friday night! Well, Connie from Pomona’s who made their video called me back! Amazed… not only by their great product but by their super amazing jamline help.
My jam turned out perfect and taste soooo good. Can’t stop eating it!
Just today I made a wonderful batch of Strawberry Lemon Marmalade from the Ball Jar Complete Book of Home Preserving. It was quite perfect. The best part was giving my two year old daughter some to taste and watching her lick it from her fingers and then straight off the plate!
What a wonderful giveaway! I love homemade bread and just started canning two years ago. My worst experience was when I thought I could double my pear jelly recipe, not listening to all the people that said don’t do it! I ended up with something that you couldn’t even call pear syrup it was so runny. LOL! My best are pomegranate jelly, caramel apple jam and peach cobbler jam. Oh so yummy!
My husband called to say he was bringing home a dinner guest just as I began to make some blackberry/peach preserves. Needless to say I rushed to finish and just as I finished filling my 6 jars, the big pot slipped out of my hand as I moved it toward the sink. The lids were still quite loose. The pot hit all 6 jars and dumped my beautiful preserves on the indoor-outdoor carpet. I had to clean the mess before the men arrived. I scooped and squeegied, and and used the Shop Vac, then got out the shampooer. I got it all out, but we went out to dinner that night. I was too rattled and upset at losing my beautiful preserves to cook! Our guest said he’d never been in a better smelling house, though!
I’ve just started making jam and decided to make mango jam with extra extra super ripe mangoes. If you don’t know what those taste like, let me warn you: not good.
The first time I canned anything, I canned three different things (bbq sauce, sweet and sour sauce and chutney) all from the same base recipe (from the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). It was a HUGE project and totally insane to do for my first time canning. I was paranoid about every little step the whole time and so the experience was quite stressful and tiring. Of course, everything worked out perfectly and all the jars made wonderful Christmas gifts, but it was silly that I made it so difficult on myself initially!
I remember the first time I made jam with a friend. She had never done it before, and I had all of one batch under my belt. It was a comedy of errors in the tiny kitchen we were using, but it was full to the brim with laughter and companionship and that double batch of raspberry jam was *awesome*. I was at her house last week and her son looked at us wistfully and said he hoped we could do some more this year. I think all of her jars disappeared in less than a month, and she said one of the best gifts she and her hub got when they married that fall? Yeah, the half dozen jars I still had, tucked into a basket along with some other goodies. One of my favorite food related memories!
I don’t have any memorable jam stories. However, I did score a car trunk full of apples and go wild and crazy with the apple butter making one year. I’ve also tried making jelly from jarred juice and it didn’t go so well. Maybe one more time before I thrown in the towel on that idea.
I’m brand new to canning, but have gone a little crazy in the last 2 weeks! Whipping up something almost every night.
Last summer I visited my parents in July. They have about 3 acres of completely wild, overgrown blackberries by their house. I cut paths through them with a brush hog, picked for days, and made enough blackberry jam to last until this summer, besides sharing with friends. It was fabulous!
Oh my, I have admired these machines from afar on the King Arthur site for years. It would come in so handy to make jam. I bought a pressure cooker to make Strawberry Jam years ago and was too nervous about it. So what I do is just cook down my strawberries in a saute pan with some sugar to taste and a little butter for richness and refrigerate it. I love it on everything!
At first I figured you were super hardcore and made your own jam while camping (presumably from berries you picked along a hike… or something). I made lots of jam last year, no great stories, but I did discover that a bowl of warm jam goes quite well with a cold beer around 11 pm, right before tackling the dishes!
I made tomato basil jam! It is very yummy, but no one seems to be brave enough to try it out. The jam may live on forever in my cupboard as I cannot wrap my mind around the idea of smearing tomato on my breakfast 🙂
I make a lot of jam, but the best story is from 2 summers ago. We were spending a long weekend at a cabin “up north” in rural northern MN. I brought up all my jam making stuff, and plums from the Farmers Market, thinking we’d be able to unload from the car into the cabin. Lo and behold, we got to the resort and they had upgraded us to a cabin only reachable by canoe! So we loaded all the jam gear and plums into the canoe, and I made jam at a “paddle-to” cabin on one of the smallest stoves I’ve ever used!
And it was amazing jam, though the resort owners were pretty confused when we paddled flats of jam across the lake the next day!
I’ve made fruit butters in my little dipper crock pot…does that count for jam? I’d really like to try something like this in the breadmaker though!
My first experience making jam was making blueberry jam in college. I didn’t make a lot of it, and it was only refrigerator-safe, but no matter– I ate it within days.
Zojirushi makes fine products (I’ve owned their rice cooker and hot water heater)– I don’t really need another appliance, but the guy would be happy if we got a bread maker, so I’m putting my name in the hat.
Hi! I’m about to make jam for the first time. And I make bread often, but never in a machine. But the thought of the machine is so intruiging!
I’ve been told I should try making freezer jam. This looks like a good alternative too. Time to head for the blackberry patch.
My first run at making jam was very poorly timed and left me stirring strawberries and sugar at 2 am. Thank goodness for loud kitchen timers or I would have left the canning pot boiling all night!
Just tried making your strawberry-rhubarb jam and I think I should have cooked it longer. It’ll be great on ice cream or in hot cereal and yogurt! Have never used a bread machine, but think if I were going to, this would be the one!!!
I was doing organic agriculture research for a university, and we had just harvested the raspberry fields. I happily took home two flats (flats, NOT the half-flats you usually get at the farmer’s market!), and proceeded to make raspberry jelly. On the hottest day of the year (104F). I ended up with somewhere around 20+ jars of jam (mostly pints, some half-pints), had to make multiple trips to the store to restock on sugar and jars and lids, and discovered that the A/C in my house was no match for the hot weather combined with hours of canning on the stove.
I started reading this post and had a moment of DUH, remembering that the bread machine I got rid of used to have a jam setting too! It’s currently 101 degrees in the shade here and even though I have a crisper drawer full of peaches I refuse to stand over a hot stove making jam right now. TOO HOT!
I’m still a newb jam maker. I made it once with my mom when I was a kid but she was making it up as she went along too. We didn’t can it – just made enough to fill a couple of jars in the fridge. But ever since then I’ve wanted to make more. I have no idea why it took me another 25 years before I finally got around to it but now I’m properly hooked. I have one kitchen cabinet slowly filling up with beautiful jeweled jars that I am so proud of! It just needs to hurry up and cool down so I can keep making more! I refuse to wake up at 5 am just to be done before the heat of the day sets in.