Bread Machine Adventures: Jam

We've had a bread machine for about eight years now. After a few experiments baking different types of bread in it when we first got it, I switched to using it for the dough cycle (especially for pizza dough and cinnamon rolls), since it does the kneading and I don't like the shape and density of the bread when the machine bakes it. I recently decided to get the most use out of it as possible.

Did you know you can make jam in a bread machine? That is, assuming it has a "Jam" cycle, which ours does.

I had to try it, just to see how it compares to making it the old-fashioned way (on the stovetop). After finding that there's no actual jam recipe in my bread machine manual (all it says is that the recipe shouldn't exceed 3.5 cups--I assume this means yield) and after a few internet searches, I settled on the recipe below (which I've included in case anyone reading this has a bread machine and wants to try this). It was also a good excuse to use some berries I had frozen last summer.

Bread Machine Triple Berry Jam

Bread Machine Triple Berry Jam
Yield: About 1.5 pints (about 3 half-pints)

2 cups total of crushed raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries, combined*
About 1.5 Tbsp. lemon juice (I didn't measure it exactly)
2 1/4 cups sugar (could use more--maybe 3 cups?--to try for a thicker set)

1. Pour crushed berries into bread machine pan, then the lemon juice, and then pour sugar on top.
2. Close lid and start Jam cycle (ours took 1 hour and 10 minutes to complete).
3. Pour hot jam (carefully, it splashes!) into clean, warm/hot jars and let cool, then refrigerate. I covered them with a clean dish towel so I could use the plastic screw-on lids you can get for canning jars when they were cool enough.

*If using frozen berries, thaw them before crushing. You could try other berry combinations as well.

The set is pretty soft/runny, but that makes it easier to spread on bread or to stir into yogurt. By the way, the bread in the photos was homemade using the dough cycle, then baked in the oven--we're totally getting our money's worth out of this machine now. We haven't stirred it into ice cream yet, but we'll have to try that, too.

Plain yogurt with bread machine jam

I also made some jam rolls (with this jam, of course) using a cinnamon roll recipe with the bread machine dough cycle and then baked them in the oven. I saw the jam roll idea on Pinterest. They're good, too.

More bread machine adventures to come!