From the Ashes of Friday’s Baking Disasters: Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Only the strong survive.

I had a lot of baking failures Friday. A lot. I was getting ready for the Saturday Share our Strength Food Bloggers Bakesale and there was something horribly off with my baking karma. I burnt the brownies I was making (sometimes I really hate my oven), and my brown butter cookies melted. Like, I misread Macheesmo’s recipe and added way more butter than I needed to, so they literally melted. Someone really needs to clean her oven now.

At the end of the day, the only thing that survived from my baking failures was some mint frosting, which I had intended to frost my brownies with, and this strawberry rhubarb jam, which I had wanted to use as a filling for brown butter sandwich cookies. Sorry for this ongoing rhubarb obsession, but I have so much left over from my last shopping trip that I can’t resist trying different things with it.

Strawberry and rhubarb are one of those classic favor combinations that you’re always hearing about, but it’s for a good reason. The rhubarb is tart and the strawberries are sweet, and together they make a really lovely duo. And, while I wasn’t able to use this jam for its original purpose, it’s good enough to make for simply for itself. It would be great on Greek yogurt, spread on toast, served with vanilla ice cream, or even sandwiched between two of these oatmeal cookies as a kind of modified version of the oatmeal cream pie. Which is what I ended up doing for the Food Blogger Bake Sale, by the way. No, it wasn’t what I had originally intended, but according to The Indoor Gardener, who purchased one, they were still pretty delicious.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with all this leftover jam.

Recipe: Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Adapted From Pick Your Own

Ingredients
1 package pectin
2 cups sugar
1 cup rhubarb, thinly sliced (about 1/2 pound)
1/2 cup water
1.5 cups crushed strawberries

Mix the pectin with 1/4 cup of the sugar. Set aside.

Place the rhubarb in a medium saucepan over medium heat and cover with the water. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until the rhubarb is soft and cooked through. Stir in the strawberries and pectin mixture and bring to a full boil (you won’t be able to stir it away). Add the rest of the sugar and cook until the jam is “set” – about one minute. Remove from heat and let cool. You can test the thickness of the jam by placing some on a spoon that’s been sitting in a glass of ice water – this will rapidly cool the jam to room temperature, allowing you to see the thickness.

Tagged as: baking disasters, jam, Recipes, rhubarb, strawberries