During the years I was in middle school, my family lived in a house just off Canyon Drive, in SW Portland. It was an isolating neighborhood, without sidewalks and with very few kids of similar age. One of the few things the house had going for it was the fact that it had an enormous yard (more than a quarter of an acre) that had been carefully tended during the sixties and seventies by a botanist.
The back yard was dotted with interesting trees (many of them fruit-bearing) and shrubs, featured a row multi-colored lilac trees (forever endearing me to those springtime flowers) and had a hidden rhubarb patch right up against the neighbor’s fence. Each spring, the refrigerator would fill up with vibrant, pink stalks, as my dad felt it was his duty to harvest all edible items from the yard. My mom would try to keep up with the bounty, but the sheer volume would overwhelm her and bags of the rhubarb would get passed out to neighbors and co-workers.
Now I mourn for all the rhubarb that we didn’t use and dream about a life that includes a prolific rhubarb patch, as it is one of my favorite spring treats. I love the fresh, apple-y scent it has when you cut into it, and I adore the electricity of its color. After a winter of dark greens and root vegetables, seeing that vivid pink on the cutting board feels like salvation.
Unfortunately, rhubarb doesn’t actually appear to be in season in the Philadelphia-area quite yet, so I broke down and made this jam with stalks from Washington State (I give my local produce store credit for having the origin so clearly marked). The first batch I made didn’t set particularly well after 24 hours, so I made another round, only to have that one become nearly solid (I used a full package of Sure-Jell powdered pectin that time and remembered why I don’t like it). I found that with refrigeration, the first batch finally firmed up a bit and achieved a really nice, if slightly loose texture. That’s the recipe I’ve included here. If you like your jam a bit firmer, use two packets of liquid pectin instead of one and skip the Sure-Jell.
And, of course, I’ll be giving away a half-pint of this jam to one lucky person. If you want a chance to be the winner, leave a comment (and if you feel so moved, share any rhubarb memories you might have). I’ll pick a winner on Friday, March 27th at 12 noon and post/Twitter the lucky individual sometime shortly after that. The recipe is after the jump.
Vanilla-Rhubarb Jam
Ingredients
- 10 cups of chopped rhubarb approximately 2 1/2 pounds of stalks
- 5 cups sugar
- 1 cup brewed Earl Grey tea
- 1 vanilla bean split and scraped
- 1 lemon juiced
- pinch of salt
- 1 packet liquid pectin Ball brand is preferred
Instructions
- Sterilize your jars in a large pot of boiling water. If you're making refrigerator jam (it will keep nicely unprocessed in the fridge for 2-3 months), skip this step.
- In a 5-quart, non-reactive pot, bring the rhubarb, sugar and tea to a boil.
- Add the vanilla bean, lemon and salt to the pot and let it bubble gently for about ten minutes (on my stove, this means I set it to medium-high).
- After ten minutes have elapsed, add the pectin, stir to combine and let cook for a few more minutes.
- At this point, dip a spoon in the jam and see how it coats the back of the spoon. If you get a nice, even sheet, the jam is done. You can also taste at this point, to see if you like the balance of flavors. Add a little more lemon juice if you feel it needs additional brightening.
- Pour into hot jars, wide mouth and rings to remove any spillage and apply lids/rings.
- Process in a hot water bath for ten minutes.
- Remove from water and let cool.
I lost this recipe somehow and could not remember where I found it. The Earl Grey tea in your recipe gave it away! I love this jam. I have been making it for several years, You have fond memories of the rhubarb patch on the West Coast and I have memories of my favourite commercial yogurt. About 30 years ago a local company (in British Columbia) had a rhubarb vanilla yogurt. For some reason they stopped making it although the company is still in business. Now I add this jam to vanilla yogurt to make my own tasty copy cat product. BTW, the jam is excellent as jam as well!
I am so pleased that you like it and that it brings back those memories!
Love this recipe. I’ve been making it for years and it’s always a favorite.
Love this recipe. I’ve been making it for years and it’s always a favorite in spring
A must make for me every year since I discovered your recipes! I often make two batches as I am asked by a couple of friends if I can spare some!
That makes me so happy!
One of my all-time favourites! I make this every year.
I’m so glad you like it!
Oh dear, it didn’t set. I am an experienced canner and jam maker but I confess, I am used to using powdered pectin. It seems to be that back when I was a young canner/jammer I tried using liquid pectin, but found that I had much more consistent success with the powdered pectin.
The flavor is very nice though! I’m positive that whatever went wrong , the fault lies with my technique. Apparently liquid pectin is not my friend, lol.
Liquid pectin formulas have changed since this recipe was written, so that could be part of the problem. I’m sorry that it didn’t work for you, though.
This is the third Food in Jars recipe I have made and the third that has not set up. I would really love to love your recipes, and understand you like your jams looser than most, but I cooked over 20 minutes instead of the 10 until it was ‘jammy’ and it still did not set after a water bath.The last time this happened, I re-cooked, adding another half a package of pectin , re-canned and then I could hardly get it out of the jar. I am an experienced jam maker and can’t risk the expense of following your recipes. Again, I would love to love them, but..
I’m sorry to hear that you’ve struggled with my recipes. This one is one of my very first and having read through it, I can see that it needs some updates to be more foolproof. I will say that most liquid has been reformulated since this recipe was written and so I don’t find it as reliable as I once did. Could you tell me the other recipes you tried that didn’t set as desired so I can get a better idea of where we diverge?
I have rhubarb but no earl grey. Im not a tea drinker. I only have black tea. Is there any substitution for the earl grey?
You could use the black tea in place of the earl grey.
Just come across thus recipe and am keen to meke it.
In Australia l use jam setting sugar in my jams – it has the pectin added.
Do you think this would work ok??
I’ve never tried it, but I imagine it would work!
I am still in love with this jam, and have been making it for years now. It’s in most of my gifts at Christmas time????
I love your book, and was wondering-do you have a way to convert some of the special small-batch recipes to larger batches? Can I just multiply all ingredients by whatever and jar it up? I love gifting home canned things, and would love to do a big batch of your pizza sauce or whatever else because everything is so good????????????
I came looking here, because I thought you might have tagged this larger batch recipe with a footnote that I could follow to any other large batch recipes you might have on your blog. Is this the only one?
The reason the recipes in Preserving by the Pint work is because of their small batch size. To increase the yields, you often need to increase the amount of pectin. There’s no one formula that you can employ to increase batch size.
I have some vanilla powder. Can I use that if i don’t have access to a bean?
Yes. The jar should say how much to use to substitute for a bean.
Can I use the smaller jars and process for 5 minutes?
You can use smaller jars, but they still need to be processed for 10 minutes. That’s the minimum time needed for sterilization.
I love this recipe and have made it a few times now but I am wondering if it would be safe to use honey instead of sugar for this recipe? Thanks
Yes. Sweeteners don’t play a role in safety. You will need to use a pectin designed for alternative sweeteners, though. Pomona’s Pectin is a good choice. I wrote a whole book about using natural sweeteners in canning, if that’s a topic you’re interested in. It’s called Naturally Sweet Food in Jars.
Is there a way to sub pomon’a s Pectin instead of the liquid ball pectin. I frequently run across this type of problem when looking up different recipes. I like the recipe, but I have a ton of pomona’s pectin and don’t really want to buy a bunch of different kinds, especially since pomona’s is awesome!!!
How much is there in a 1 packet of liquid pectin? UK can only get it in a bottle.
Three ounces.
Trying this tonight. However, I no longer use a hot water bath after jarring my jams and jellies (and pickles for that matter)…instead, I keep the lids and rings ‘hot’ in water until ready to put them on the hot jars, and then turn each jar upsidedown for 10 minutes on paper towel. Turn them back right side up and within minutes I hear the ping and pop as the lids ‘seal’ and the center dip forms in the lids. The ‘canned’ ones are stored in the pantry; any that didn’t seal (there is always that one!) go in the refrigerator to be consumed first. This saves me the water bath step and with jam, every step saved is time out of the kitchen…
It is not recommended to skip the boiling water bath process.
Can I substitute Pamona’s (powdered) pectin for Ball’s, and if so, how much?
I only use Pamona’s because I like the option of using a flexible amount /less sugar while still getting a firm jam.
Thanks!
Unfortunately, they are not easily exchangeable.
Hello! I have your book and am excited to can this in the next few days. I was wondering about pectin. Can Pomona’s Universal pectin be used instead of liquid pectin? I generally don’t make recipes that call for pectin, so I don’t have a lot of experience with it. Also, this can be processed in smaller jars, right?
This recipe has too much sugar to work with Pomona’s Pectin. It is not interchangeable with liquid pectin. This can be processed in smaller jars.
Two jam covered thumbs up! This recipe inspired me to start canning, and was the very first thing I’ve ever canned. I LOVE it, it is so yummy! I made it with the intent of giving it as gifts, but I’m unsure if it will last that long, I’ve eaten a great deal of it myself already. This recipe will be made during rhubarb season every year, without fail, from now forward. This recipe was so good, I immediately went online to buy your two cookbooks. Thank you!
Barbara, I’m so glad you like it! And thank you for buying my books! I really do appreciate it!
I used oranges rind and juice from 1 orange instead of lemon juice, vanilla instead of vanilla bean and organic blueberry jam tea instead of earl grey. Didn’t quite use as much sugar as I don’t like mine quite as sweet. Was very tasty!!
Tried this recipe last year and followed it exactly. The flavor was wonderful, but it did it not set. It comes out extremely runny, which made a fantastic topping for ice cream and a mix-in for plain yogurt. I am going to try it again today now that I have a candy thermometer and see if I can get it to the gelling point to see if it makes a difference.
I made this using a pouch of Ball pectin, and it was SUPER runny. I had to label the jars “Vanilla Bean Rhubarb COMPOTE” because it really wouldn’t pass as jam. Any idea why? I used a madagascar vanilla red rooibos tea instead of earl gray (keeping things decaf), but followed all the quantities and cooking times exactly! Not sure why it didn’t set up properly.
The issue is that cooking times are just suggestions. Your rhubarb may have contained more water than mine did and so could have needed a minute or two longer on the stove. That’s why I suggested that you use look at how the jam is sheeting to ensure that it’s ready to set up before you pull it off the stove.
I tried this last night! … … I will try it again in a few weeks.
In my defense, a lot of recipes start with just fruit and sugar.
So when the first step in the recipe for vanilla-rhubarb jam was, “Bring rhubarb, sugar, and 1 cup of earl grey tea to a boil,” it made total sense in my head.
So I cut up the rhubarb – measured the sugar – cut open a bunch of teabags, since I didn’t have loose Earl Grey, and measured out one cup. I wondered how the tea would dissolve and not stay kind of … ground-y … once the jam was cooked, but I trust Marisa’s recipes. Marissa is the bomb! (You see where this is going, right? I *did not* see where this was going.)
I mixed everything up in the pot and stood there frowning at the mixture, then went back and checked the recipe twice, trying to figure out if I’d missed an instruction to add some sort of liquid. Fruit and sugar cooks down into liquid really fast, but rhubarb is not a fruit. It doesn’t hold as much water and it’s not going to break down fast enough. I mean — come on. I’m not dumb. In what universe am I not about to carbonize dry sugar on the bottom of the pan? Where is the liquid in this recipe, Marisa? I trust you but something is wrong. WHERE IS THE LIQU–
Oh.
One cup of Earl Grey tea.
Not tea leaves.
Tea.
I didn’t have the energy to rinse the sugar and tea out of the rhubarb and salvage it. Once I stopped flailing and laughing, I dumped the entire mess and decided this was a pretty good indication that I was done canning for the week.
My kitchen smells, overwhelmingly, of bergamot.
Oh god, Christine! So funny! And I’m so sorry for the wasted ingredients. I’m going to go add the word “brewed” to that recipe, so that no one else has to take this particular journey.
I love your website! New to canning and I’ve used three of your recipes this year with success. This may be a silly question, but do you add earl grey tea leaves, or 1 cup of prepared earl grey tea (like the drink). Thanks!
I add 1 cup of prepared earl grey tea.
Do you think it would work using pure vanilla extract instead of the bean?
You don’t get nearly the same depth of flavor from vanilla extract. Because it is alcohol based, most the flavor will just burn right off.
How about imitation vanilla extract? And how much would you suggest using? No access in my town to the beans lol
I don’t recommend using an extract. They are unstable and evaporate rapidly during cooking.
Just made this last night, first time canning/preserving! I’m a huge rhubarb fan and this turned out lovely. Really nice blend of flavors. Pretty proud of myself right now, I used a mix of weck and ball jars, all but one jar sealed!
Oh, and I used frozen rhubarb trying to finish up what was in the freezer from last year before this years crop is ready!
How do you freeze rhubarb? Do you par cook it first?
So pretty . . strawberry rhubarb is good too!