Strawberry Bay Leaf Jam

An easy strawberry jam with an herbal twist of floral bay leaves. Bright, sweet, and summery, it makes good use of seasonal berries.

If you love jam but don’t love the huge amounts of sugar it takes to make it, we’ve got you covered! This lower sugar jam makes a lightly sweet preserve, where you can actually taste the fruit – and the herbaceous bay.

This recipe only needs a couple cups of fruit, placing it firmly into the small-batch strawberry jam category. It can easily be made with frozen fruit, too (see substitutions) and only takes about five minutes to make.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Method
• Tips and Notes
• Substitutions
• Recipe

Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top of the post, or scroll to the bottom of the post, to see the full recipe card with ingredient measurements and instructions.

Ingredients

• Strawberries
• Cane sugar
• Bay leaves
• Low-sugar pectin (like Pomona’s)
• Calcium water (comes with the pectin)

Method

The sugar and pectin is combined first and set aside. Mash the strawberries together with the calcium water, add the bay leaves, and bring to a rolling boil. Stir in the sugar/pectin mixture, mixing constantly for two minutes, until the sugar is dissolved.

That’s it! No additional cooking time. Just remove the bay leaves and spoon the jam into sterilised jars – it’ll set as it cools. There are additional instructions available with the pectin packages to better understand how it works.

We love this with vegan scones for a simple treat, but it’s equally good on toast or as a filling in vanilla cake.

Tips and Notes

This is made with Pomona’s pectin, which works well with low sugar jams. Apple pectin based options in other regions outside of North America should work as well.

If you’d like to can this recipe, make sure you use a water bath or pressure canning method due to the lower sugar content. If you’re not an experienced canner, we recommend storing in the refrigerator or freezer instead.

Substitutions

Frozen berries work well if you want to make a low-sugar strawberry jam out of season – not the same as fresh, of course, but still pretty good! If you want to go that route, it might be helpful to thaw the berries in a sieve before cooking the jam to reduce the extra water content in frozen fruit.

The bay leaves, though they add a lovely flavour, are technically optional. You could use other herbs (thyme is great with strawberries) or leave it out if preferred.

Raw cane and granulated sugar can be used interchangeably for this recipe. We haven’t tried it with a liquid sweetener like honey or maple syrup.

More Refrigerator Preserves

Candied Mixed Peel
Hibiscus Simple Syrup
Strawberry Ginger Simple Syrup
Raspberry Rhubarb Jam
Honey Elderflower Cordial

If you make this recipe, let us know by tagging @baked_theblog + #bakedtheblog on Instagram! We love to feel like we’re in the kitchen with you.