Awesome Linda, do let me know what you think of the jam when you’ve made it. I personally have never had any issue with ring style lids not sealing as hot jam in a hot jar creates a vacuum as it cools which ever way up it is. I have had cheap unbranded jars with single screw top lids not sea and then given the jam to my neighbours with instruction to keep in fridge and eat promptly:-)

Excellent Jaime. I’m afraid I’ve only ever used granulated sugar in my jams so having no experience of using anything else I can’t advise. Maple syrup is very expensive and honey loses its health benefits when heated plus both have a dominant flavour so they’re not something I’ve ever been tempted to use even if you could get the jam to set (which I doub’t)?

Hi Alayna, we don’t water bath jam in the UK or in most of Europe and it is shelf stable. You can of course water bath if that is your preference but you’d have to follow your jar manufacturers guidelines on that as I have no knowledge of this process. Pectin is something found in fruit which aids the setting, in low pectin fruits I add lemon juice which helps to set the jam – it has nothing to do with preserving the jam, the sugar does that:-)

Excellent, do let me know what you think:-)

Hi Lisa, glad it all worked out OK for you. 500 grams is nearly 18 ounces though and if you only used 9 ounces of sugar for 28 ounces of fruit then I don’t think there is enough sugar in there to preserve the jam so I’d store in the fridge and eat it soon as it won’t keep for years (as per written recipe).

This is a great recipe that I will save.
I had more than the 13oz (US) that you had on the recipe – mine weighed in at 28oz. I used less sugar as I ran out..lol..so I ended up with about 9oz, but followed the instructions exactly and it turned out perfect and tasted delicious!

Thank you for posting!

Hi Jane, I’m afraid there is no way to accurately convert a weight to a volume if you mean cups. Your best option is to buy a cheap set of digital scales, I’ve seen them on Amazon US for not much more than the price of a coffee. That way you will be on the road to accurate and successful recipe making. I once weighed cups on blueberries in my kitchen and depending on the size of the blueberries they all weighed different amounts. Then scale that up for the amount of blueberries in jam recipe and the margin for error is huge. Plus the cups I own aren’t US cups. So I just don’t go there as food is too precious to waste and elderberries even more so as you can’t just buy them.

Hi Sama, I really don’t think that that would work.

Thank you Holly, sorry I know nothing about water bathing or sweeteners but I guess it’s trial and error when diverting from the recipe.

I undercooked mine since I was going to do a waterbath for 20 minutes, so hard to know if it would gel right. So I added 1 tbsp. apple pectin. I did half sugar, half stevia in the raw. Lot on the sweet side even though I did more berries than sweetener, so next time I will lessen by at least 1/4.

Thanks for the recipe, I have a ton more elderberries in the freezer so going to try some other things.

Excellent, do let me know how you get on:-)

Aaw, that’s wonderful, so pleased you like the recipe and had success on your first go, well done:-)

I would respectfully advise you to do the same! First quote on Google “cooking the berries destroys the glycosides present in the seeds which can cause nausea and other gastro-intestinal upset” I do thorough research before posting any of my recipes and studied Home Economics to degree level so take food safety very seriously. You will have your work cut out as there are hoards of Elderberry dessert recipes out there with seeds included. I have myself had to comment a few years ago when I saw a girl on Instagram make a raw smoothie including Elderberries which could lead to sickness. I assure you my jam and all the other cooked elderberry recipes on the web are safe. I make this jam every year to ward off cold and flu and my elderly mother loves it too, it will not make you sick, quite the reverse.

Sadly I can’t see what you’ve replied to until this comment is published. Gosh, aren’t you lucky, really wish I had an elderberry tree! Good luck:-)

In reply to Camilla.

Ha ha , I see you got no reply to previous message, anyway this all sounds very simple in the way you explained everything so here goes, elderberry jam here I come, I discovered elderberry tree at the bottom of my new garden, having just moved, wish me luck ☺️

Excellent Vicky, do let me know how you get on:-)

In the recipe block at he bottom I say “allow to cool”, where does it say “leave too cool”?

Kind regards,

Simon Peters

Hi Fawn, elderberries can be toxic if eaten raw. Cooked berries are fine and safe.

Hi Shelly, if the jam passed the crinkle test on a chilled plate then I would put the jars in the fridge and check the consistency the next day as it may be due to the heat. Failing that then you’d need to tip the jam back into a pan and re-boil until you reach setting point, but hopefully it won’t come to that.

Yes I just picked some today and froze them for future jam making as need a few more. Just proceed with the frozen elderberriea, no need to thaw.

Hi Cynthia, glad you like the jam, it’s one of my favourites. I haven’t seen any elderberries this year as been stuck inside with Covid so I hope I haven’t missed them locally. My problem with low sugar jams is that I really don’t like the taste of sweeteners. I made a sugar free chia jam once and it tasted awful to me so never ventured down that path again. I avoid sweeteners as much as possible to be honest.

I found the berries in our last remaining elderberry bush. Usually the birds get them. This time, I was able to harvest enough to make 2 half pints and 3 smaller jars…I didn’t have everything to follow it 100 percent, but I used much less sugar and added 1 tsp. of stevia plus a low sugar jam making pectin I had left over, and it turned out quite well. Tastes just like the lozenges you get in the health food store. I think you should post a low sugar recipe. I did the best I could with what I had and it turned out well. The worst part was picking out all the stems.

Thanks Alicia, I know and I can’t wait to pick more elderberries when they’re ready:-)

Absolutely delicious

Thank you so much Lisa. We’re still waiting for our elderberries here as currently still flowering, but as soon as they appear I’ll be making more of this luscious jam:-)

Beautiful jam!
Thanks for the recipe!

Hi Andrea, no you need the juice from the fresh elderberries to make jam.

Thank you so much Toni. That’s a wonderful tip. Although, call me odd, but there’s something quite satisfying about pronging the berries off the stems:-)

There’s a jump to recipe button at the top of the post or just scroll to the bottom of the page.

Hi Kay, that’s lovely to hear, would have been great if you could have hit the star rating in that case:-)

Hi Aly, in theory you could but as I haven’t tried this I don’t know how long it would take to set, I’m guessing it would double the or triple the time (you’d need a digital/jam thermometer) plus as the fruits are so tiny I’m not sure that they’d like such a long cooking time. If it was me I’d cook up a couple of batches in 2 pans at the same time rather than risk a larger batch.