Sunday, July 26, 2009

freezer mania

Ahh, the joys of the freezer. Tuck away those extra bits of dough (scones, cookies, bread), homemade jams, fresh picked berries, and extra cakes and cookies for a rainy day.

With the recent berry season, I have gone a bit wild making jams (freezer and traditional) and freezing all those delicious berries. Canning seems like a daunting process, so it's best to do a big batch of stuff at a time with another person or two to help out. For the majority of my jam making, I used the standard Certo recipes. I like the low sugar stuff if I can use it, otherwise I tend to add extra berries to lower the sugar to berry ratio. For strawberry jam, try using balsamic vinegar in place of the lemon juice for a FANTASTIC strawberry balsamic jam full of depth and wonderful strawberry flavor. Trust me. I originally saw it here: http://achowlife.blogspot.com/2009/05/canning-is-cool.html

Just this weekend, I pulled out a couple of chocolate dessert items--a chocolate chip pound cake and chocolate drop cookies. I made this chocolate chip pound cake recipe earlier this year and froze the second loaf, wrapped twice in foil, once in a freezer wrap, and then into a freezer bag (worried about freezer burn much?). The loaf cake recipe also comes with a chocolate sauce to dip the cake in or drizzle over. Absolutely delicious.