Autumn Olive Orange Jam Canning Recipe

If you have many bushes of Autumn Olives, this is a great recipe to use!  This is for a larger batch.  It took me about four hours to pick a large quantity and this recipe uses half of what I picked (6 quarts or 24 cups).  Considering that it is highly nutritious, tasty and free fruit, I would say that it was worth it!

Autumn Olive Orange Jam

Ingredients:

6 quarts Autumn Olives (24 cups)
4 oranges, zest and juice (choose organic if you can as you will be using the skin)
~10 cups sugar (will depend on amount of liquid after straining)
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons pectin (optional, depending on how firm you want your jam.  These berries have a lot of natural pectin already)

Directions:

Rinse berries and add to a large pot.  Zest and juice your oranges.  Set aside zest and add juice to berries.  Simmer for 30-45 minutes with top until berries begin to release juice.

Blend berry mixture with an immersion blender (stick blender) until seeds can be seen floating.

Strain mixture through a fine mesh strainer.  You will probably have to do this in sections.  This will reduce your volume significantly as the seed generally takes up to a third of the berry.  Discard seeds and skin (makes great compost).

Measure liquid.  For me, it produced 10 cups of liquid.  Add one cup of sugar to each cup of liquid.  Add zest, ground cloves and lemon juice.

Boil for 30-45 minutes, stirring frequently.  Jam should begin to gel.  It will also become more firm as it cools.  If you want really firm jam, add 2 tablespoons of pectin.

Prepare jars and lids.  Ladle into the jars.  Water bath 20 minutes.

Makes about 7 pints.