How to make Wild Violet Jam

This is the time of year where the yards and woods are carpeted with a lovely sprinkling of small wildflowers. One of my favorites is the wild violet. It comes in white, pale blue, and purple. Today we are going to talk about the purple ones.

 There are so many delicious things that you can do with wild plants, and wild violet is one of them. You can candy them to put on cakes and cookies, and you can make jams, jellies and syrups from them. Don't try to used the lighter colored flowers, they make pale and pasty looking concoctions.

Sometimes it takes a couple of days to find enough violets to make a batch of jam. Especially if sometimes you have to creep over onto your folk's land to complete your harvest- wink, wink. As you pick them, you can keep them covered with a bit of water in a ziplock bag placed in the fridge. You will need two cups of the flowers, just pressed into a cup, not packed down.

 Just to show that there is no food coloring or tricks about this recipe, this is the water that I poured off one of the bags that had been in the fridge. That is the natural color that had leached from the petals. You're going to keep 3/4 cup of that beautiful floral water for the jam!

 Put the 2 cups of blooms, 3/4 cup of the violet water, and the juice of 1/2 a lemon into a blender. In other jelly recipes that call for lemon juice I generally leave it out. However, I have done it both ways and there is something about the acid in the lemon juice that makes the color of the flowers more brilliant. Don't skip this or you won't have as bright and clear a jam!

 Pulse the blender, but don't get it too fine. You want to see beautiful shreds of petals.

 Pour this mixture into a pan and add one pack of SureJell, and one tsp of butter. Bring to a boil over high heat, then stir in two cups of sugar. Bring this back to a boil, and boil one minute.

 Remove from heat and gather your sterilized jars, lids, and rings.

 A skim will have formed on the top. Carefully scoop it out, leaving as much of the clear liquid underneath as possible.

 Pour into small jars, wipe rims clean, put on lids and rings finger-tight.

 Process in a hot water bath to meet health codes for selling your jam, or entering in a fair. For my personal use, I often use the Inversion Method. Don't scold, I know that it is not fail safe, but these are ones that I will keep for myself and I know if it has a proper seal or not. For this method you simply invert the filled jars for 5 minutes and then flip back upright. The lids will seal as usual, with no water bath.

 I recommend using this jam within 6 months. Other jellies have a much longer shelf life, but for some reason this particular kind seems to crystallize after a certain amount of time. Rose petal syrup, and my other jellies don't ever do this, but violet does.

 Now you will have glistening jars of deep purple that you can hold up to the light and see all the lovely bits of flowers. Even the skim that you took off the top is fine to eat. It is just the foamy top part, it is still sweet and has the flower bits also. I don't like to waste something that only comes once a year, so I eat that jar first, and save the nice clear ones for special occasions.

 This jam has a floral taste with a lemony undertone, and a delicate chew from the flowers. I really enjoy the taste and think that it is gorgeous on shortbread cookies, scones, or even just a humble biscuit.

If you think that you would like to make this jam, PLEASE watch my video on making jelly! I really just touched on the steps here, with no great detail. In the video I go over the equipment needed, I show you each step of the way, I give you instructions for hot water baths, and I give you fool-proof ways to know if your jars are safely and properly sealed. Please watch if you are wanting to make any kind of jams, syrups, or jellies. THIS POST shows photos of the steps with the video at the bottom.

Wild Violet Jam Recipe

Blend two cups of violets with 3/4 cups of violet water and the juice of half a lemon. Pulse, but not finely. Pour into a pan and add 1 pack of SureJell and 1 tsp of butter. Bring to a rolling boil and stir in two cups of sugar. Bring back to a boil and boil for one minute. Remove from heat, skim, and can. Makes approx. 9 mini jars.