Just because you are diabetic does not mean you do not crave something sweet once in a while.
A generous scoop of homemade sugar-free blackcurrant jam on top of your cheese sandwich is, fortunately, more or less guilt-free. Berries do not have a lot of natural sugar (percentage-wise) and if you sweeten your jam with a sweetener that does not affect your blood sugar, it is a great deal. It is also a great way for non-diabetics to keep down their sugar intake down.
Right now lots of berries are in season so you need to make your preserves for the long winter months.
One of my favorite berries is blackcurrant, so that is what I chose for this recipe, but you can substitute it with any berry or fruit that you like. Another favorite for me is orange jam with the peel and all.
If you replace it with another berry or fruit you just have to adjust the sweetener so that it sweetens to the equivalent of 75% to 95% fruit/berry weight in sugar.
Homemade sugar-free blackcurrant jam is just so incredibly more delicious than what you can buy in the stores. So just get going. It is literally only a couple of minutes worth of active work.
The sodium benzoate can be purchased at Amazon.
Homemade sugar free black currant jam
Ingredients
Jam
- 400 gram fresh black currant
- sweetener in the amount of 300 gram to 380 gram sugar
- 2 tablespoon corn starch
- 2 tablespoon water
Sodium Benzoate mixture
- 8 gram sodium benzoate
- 92 gram water
Instructions
Make sodium benzoate mixture
- Measure out 8 grams of sodium benzoate and 92 grams of water.
- Mix thoroughly until the sodium benzoate has been completely dissolved.
Make jam
- Clean berries under running water and remove stalks
- Put the berries in a pot. You can put a bit of water in the bottom so that it does not burn.
- Add sweetener to the berries. Stir to combine.
- Let it cook through over medium-high heat for about 10 minutes.
- If the jam is too fluid for your taste, make a slurry of corn starch and water; while boiling, pour in little by little, mix, check the consistency, and put more in if needed. If you put too much starch in, it will turn into jelly.
- Take off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.
- Check the sweetness and add more sweetener if needed.
- Mix in 10 grams of sodium benzoate mixture. You need 0.2% of the weight of berries, so if you use more berries, you need to scale up.
- Pour into a sterilized mason jar, seal, and put it into the refrigerator right away.
- It can stay fresh for at least a month, but I've had it stay good for longer.
- That is how easy it is to make my homemade sugar-free blackcurrant jam recipe. I hope you enjoy it.
