An Easy Serviceberry Jelly Recipe

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The Serviceberry trees are loaded this year! And they are larger a juicier than many years. We have been over at the new homestead working on the house and there is a beautiful Serviceberry shrub near the well. The children were excited to pick the berries and try to make a Serviceberry jelly recipe!

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What Are Serviceberries?

Serviceberries are also known as Saskatoon or Juneberries depending on where you live. They are medium sized shrubs with roundish leaves and small edible berries that have a similar appearance to blueberries. Serviceberries are a North American native and is excellent habitat and food for wildlife. The berries themselves are a dark purplish blue and tend to be prett seedy. Often they are quite dry as well. However this year they are better than usual, both larger and jucier than other years. And there are so many of them.

Where to find Serviceberries

Serviceberries can be found in many conditions but often grow along the edges of fields and woods.

It has been so fun to discover everything growing on our new property! It turns out there are several kinds of native edible berries. Not only are there Serviceberries, but we also found Whitebark black raspberries, Golden Currant, and Elderberries.

Picking the Berries

The berries are quite easy to pick . They grow in small groups along the branches. I ended up picking about 1 1/2 quarts of berries the first day and the next day the children were so excited to pick some that we ended up with 3 quarts. We alsoleft many berrie sin the higher branches for birds to enjoy!

What Serviceberry Recipe?

We weren’t sure what to make with them but after thinking for a while decided to start with jelly. I don’t especially like all the seeds in sesrviceberries, so thought a serviceberry jelly recipe would be a good option!

I started looking around online but decided it would be easier to look in my Ball Blue canning book, Sure enough there was a generic berry jelly recipe that looked perfect!

How to Make the Serviceberry Jelly Recipe

Making the Juice

The first step to making any jelly is to extract the juice from the fruit. I used the first 1 1/2 quarts of berries that we picked for this recipe. After washing the berries I placed them in a large pot. I mashed the berries a bit with my potato masher. Then I added 3 cups of water and simmered them all for an hour.

Next I lined a colander with clean muslin and placed it over a bowl. I poured the berries and juice into the colander. Next I gathered up the corners of the muslin and tied it tightly with a string. I hung the entire bag from a cabinet handle and allowed the juice to drip into the bowl for several hours. Finally, I used my hands to squeeze out as much of the remaining juice as I could. I stored the juice in a jar for a day because I didn’t have time to make the jelly yet.

What To Do With the Leftover Berries

At this point you could compost the berries or feed them to chickens. I wanted to try to get a bit more use out of them. So I put them back in the pot covered them with water and simmered them for an hour. I strained out the weaker juice and used it for flavoring batches of water kefir and kombucha as well as dyeing the already stained muslin left from straining.

Making the Serviceberry Jelly Recipe

Ingredients

• 3 1/3 cups serviceberry juice
• 2 Tblsp. lemon juice
• 1 package pectin
• 5 cups sugar

Now on to the jelly itself. I ended up with 3 cups of juice. The recipe from the Ball Blue Book called for 3 1/2. To make up the difference I just added a little bit of the weaker juice I made the second round.

I added the juice, lemon juice and a package of pectin to a large pot. Heating and stirring until the pectin is dissolved I brought it to a simmer. I removed from the heat for a moment to add the sugar, then returned to the burner. I stirred the mixture and brought it to a rolling boil for 1 minute. And the Jelly itself is done at this point. You can ladle it into jars and refridgerate or for longer storage you can water bath can it. I water bath canned most of my jars, but left out two little jars that my girls wanted to try right away!

How to Can the Serviceberry Jelly Recipe

Canning the jelly is not really very hard there are just a few extra steps involved. If you would like to can your jelly gather all your supplies before you begin cooking the jelly.

Supplies Needed

• Large Canning Pot
• Clean Canning Jars, pints or half pints are nice
• Clean rims
• New canning lids
• Jar Lifter
• Small pot
• Rubber Gloves
• Ladle
• Canning Funnel

Fill canning pot halfway with water place empty jars in the bottom. Heat until water just begins to boil then turn of.

Meanwhile place lids in rims and place in a small pot. Cover with water and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Turn off and set aside.

Once jars, lids, and jelly are ready take the jars out of the water using the jar lifter. Using the funnel and ladle fill each jar with jelly, leaving 1/4 inch at the top. Screw on a lid. This is where the rubber gloves come in handy! Everything is hot and the gloves protect my hands!

Place all the jars back in the canning pot. Be sure they are fully covered with water. Turn on high heat and bring to a boil. When it begins to boil set the timer for the required proccessing time. For Jelly it is 10 minutes at 1000 ft elevation. I am higher than that so I set mine for 15 minutes. The general rule is 5 extra minutes per 3000 ft. of elevation over 1000 ft.

When the proccesing time is done, turn off the heat and allow to cool down for 5 minutes. The removes the jars and place one a towel to cool. You should begin hearing the lids pop as they seal. Let the jars rest undisturbed for 12 – 24 hours. Then check the seals, remove the rings, wipe anything sticky from the jars, label, and store.

A Fun Serviceberry Recipe

We had such a fun time making this recipe for serviceberry jelly! It turned out a beautiful glossy red, gelled perfectly and tastes delicious! Let me know if you try this recipe!

The children also made some mini Serviceberry raspberry pies, which were delicious! We might try some pancake syrup with some of the service berries we have left.

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