In last year's "canstravaganza" I made strawberry rhubarb jam, courtesy of the abundance in my garden, along with raspberry jam and tayberry jam. I pruned the tayberry and raspberry bushes for the first time this winter and they rewarded me with an explosion of berries this summer. Since I could see that coming, I ate the strawberries fresh as I picked each day's batch and stashed rhubarb and the berries for a combination to be decided later.
Tayberries have a wonderful floral sweetness that really comes out when they're cooked. I thought that would balance the rhubarb well. I did a bit of exploring for sample recipes involving tayberries and rhubarb and couldn't find one with that exact combination. Time to develop my own, with my usual research on fruit:sugar ratios and other elements. Since tayberries are a cross between blackberries and raspberries I started with recipes for blackberries, then looked at other berry/rhubarb and tayberry/something combinations, bearing in mind that rhubarb is tart and other berries vary in sweetness. Food in Jars, my go-to, commented that a 1:1 ratio could work fine in a strawberry rhubarb recipe.
I hoped to avoid using pectin so the jam wouldn't end up too solid and jelled. I've overshot before on this and I want spreadable jam, not rubberized fruit you can stand a spoon in. I've also had trouble reaching the jelling temperature at times and have added a bit of pectin late in the process with success. According to one recipe I read blackberries have more pectin than their red cousins. Tayberries are purple when they're ripe so I'm treating them like blackberries.
My sources:
- Low-Sugar Blackberry Rhubarb Jam with low-sugar pectin, Food in Jars. Blackberries:rhubarb 1.5:1 by weight. Fruit:sugar not provided in consistent measurements; 2.5 pounds fruit:1.5 cups sugar.
- Blueberry Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars: Blueberries:rhubarb:sugar 1:1:1 by weight.
- Tayberry Lemon Jam, no pectin, Anchored Baking: Tayberries:sugar 2:1.
- This one is worth reading for its great photo series illustrating the various stages of jam testing with a chilled plate. It takes a different approach than the usual "run your finger through, look for the wrinkle" technique. Instead you put the jam on the plate, chill it in the freezer for four minutes, and observe what it does when you tilt the plate up. If the jam stays as a blob and slides down the plate without a bunch of juice separating out, it's jam.
- Tayberry Jam, Little Berry Blog, no pectin: 2.25 lbs. tayberries:2.5 c. sugar
- Tayberry Jam, Chef Heidi Fink, no pectin: 5 c. tayberries:3.5-4 c. sugar
- Tayberry Raspberry Refrigerator Jam (no pectin), Jam Blog: Ratio of raspberries to tayberries was strictly a function of how many they were able to pick. Berry:sugar ratio 2:1 by weight
- Strawberry Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars: Berry:rhubarb ratio 2:1. Fruit:sugar ratio also 2:1. Measurements by volume, not by weight.
- From a mention of vanilla in this Food in Jars post and the next one listed I'm taking away the idea to include a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste for every 6 c. total fruit.
- Sweet Cherry Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars. Cherries:rhubarb 3:2 by weight. Fruit:sugar 5 lbs:3 cups, or an estimated volume comparison of 14:3 cups.
- Small Batch Vanilla Rhubarb Jam with pectin, Food in Jars: 1.25 lbs. rhubarb:1 c. sugar
- Rhubarb Hibiscus Jam, with pectin, Food in Jars. 2.25 lbs:2 c. sugar
- Macerate the fruit overnight if you want to. (Notes* at end of recipe)
- Get your hot-water bath canning setup together. This blog isn't your home for full canning safety information. Consult the National Center for Home Food Preservation for detailed instructions.
- Put a small plate in the freezer to get cold for the wrinkle test you'll use to check jam readiness for canning.
- Rhubarb: 2.6 lbs, a hair over 8 cups, diced fine
- Tayberries*: 3.75 lbs., 12 cups. Fresh or frozen both work. Other berry varieties also good here!
- Sugar: 7.5-10 cups (taste and adjust based on berry sweetness; if you picked your tayberries when they were red, not dark purple, they weren't fully ripe and will be more tart)
- Lemon juice: 1/2 c. (1/4 c. per 10 cups of fruit)
- Vanilla bean paste (optional): 2-3 t.