Making homemade mulberry freezer jam is simple. The hardest part is waiting for the berries to cook!

You can make mulberry jam from any quantity of berries, but a large batch (a gallon or more) will be more worth your time. In fact, you can use these basic guidelines for any type of berries, and make any kind of jam you want.

You will need:

• Mulberries, or other berries and fruits. Good candidates include blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, or even combinations of fruits like strawberries and rhubarb. Use whatever appeals to your and your family.
• Sugar or other sweetener (not too strong flavored, or you'll mask the mulberries)
• Pectin, or small sour apples or oranges or lemons (optional) - all contain pectin
• A spoon (I like a wooden one)
• A cooking pot suited to the amount of berries you have
• Freezer containers or canning jars and equipment, if canning
• Time...an hour or more

I'll show you how to do the easiest recipe I know of, for a freezer jam you can also waterbath can, if you want to.

You will need to sort your mulberries, if they have just come directly off a tree. Wearing thin rubber gloves is a good idea, as mulberries stain easily! If you don't wear gloves, you will have purple hands for several days.

My husband has fond memories from junior high school, of showing one girl how much he liked her by rubbing handfuls of mulberries in her hair. That was before hair dyed all sorts of unnatural colors came into vogue. It is unclear to me whether she continued to like him back.

Begin by taking out all sticks, leaves, and unripe, pink berries. You should discard the pink berries, which are quite tart, and can make you sick.

I sort my berries directly into a cooking pot, with a dish for the unripe ones, leaves, and sticks close at hand. A few unripe ones in the pot won't spoil the jam, but don't let too many slip by. This is the most labor intensive part of the process.

Wash your berries. You may float them in a clean sinkful of water, and scoop them out into a collander to dry, or you may use a wire collander or sieve, and run water over them. Wash them gently, so as not to crush them and release the juices. Avoid crushing the berries when harvesting, by placing them in shallow containers.

When you have removed everything you don't want to eat, you are ready to cook the berries.

Cooking the berries down is hardly any work at all. Just turn the heat on low at first, cover the pot, and go do something else, coming back occassionally to stir the berries and see whether you need to adjust the heat. As more juice is released, you should increase the heat, but will need to stir more frequently.

You may add sugar at the beginning, if you like. I add a little, just to thicken the juice into a light syrup. A rule of thumb for jams is to measure your fruit, and add half of whatever that quantity is in sugar, but ripe mulberries are quite sweet on their own, so use discretion. I think this proportion of sugar would have be overwhelming with sweet mulberries.

You may add pectin if you desire a thicker product than would naturally be achieved. Pectin is sold powdered or as a liquid, or you may make your own from sour apples. (I'll show how another time.) I usually just chop a few small apples (peeled and cored) into the jam, and allow them to cook down together. Tart applesauce should work as well.

When the berries are a bit bubbly and have released their juices, they are just about done. You can allow them to cook down and thicken a bit more (supposing you have added sugar and/or pectin), or you can take them as is.

I usually don't have berries in sufficient quantities to make it worth my while canning them, but you may use a water bath canning method, if you like (see below).

I prefer to spoon my jam into small freezer cups, such as recycled yogurt cartons, and have them ready to thaw as needed. Be sure to label carefully.

While your berries are cooking down, prepare your jars and equipment - wash your jars, self-sealing lids, and rings, set your lids in scalding water, and fill your waterbath canner with the appropriate amount of water, aiming to cover the jars by about 1 inch. (You may use any size or style of jars that appeals to you, provided they are true canning jars.) Begin heating the canner.

After your berries have cooked down, ladle the jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Wipe the rims of your jars with a clean, damp cloth, then put on the caps, being careful to get the rings tight, but not overtight, and place carefully in your canner. Once the water boils, begin processing time. Process pints 15 minutes.

Remove jars to a clean, dry towel, set away from drafts, and leave to cool for 8-12 hours.

Check seals, wash outsides of jars if necessary, and store in a cool, dark place.

Jars of jam make lovely gifts, labeled with neat, professional-looking labels, and tied round with a ribbon or raffia.