Does anyone have any recipes for making jam (any kind) without any sugar. I know it can be done, but how. The store bought kind is nice and solid. I saw an ad once for something (using calcium I think)that you could use to set jam without sugar. I put the magazine down in "the pile" to look at later, and it fell into a black hole.

I would also like a recipe for very moist peach muffins (sugar in these is fine).

Since I am here, does anyone have an "instant" baking mix for muffins, cakes, etc. I love fresh baked, but am not at all fond of baking. I would love to have a quicker way without resorting to Bisquick.

I am a long time countryside mag. reader, but new to this forum. I just LOVE IT. There is nothing like it. We rent in a less than rural area, and I haven't found many like minded people. The mag. has been a life-line for me.

-- Cathryn Lee (cl@greenwood.com), November 18, 1999

Answers

Baking mix: 5 lb flour (17.5 cups) 2/3 cup baking powder 1/2 cup sugar 2 TBS salt 4 cups vegetable shortening Sift together first four, cut in shortening 1 cup at a time. To measure: spoon into cup, do not pack. Use like commercial biscuit mix.

Sugarless jams are made using low-methoxyl pectin, bone meal was added to the earliest versions to cause the set. This pectin is available in my local grocery. It is as expensive as regular pectin. I have cooked down fruit pulp (finish in a low oven to avoid scorching) and although not as thick as pectin recipes it really tastes like fruit. Once opened it molds in the refrigerator much more quickly than sugary products. Look for recipes for fruit butters, and omit the sugar.

Peach muffins: 3 cups mix (above) 3TBS sugar 1 beaten egg 2/3 cup milk 1/2 cup peach puree Greased muffin tins 2/3 full, 400', 20-25 minutes. Option- increase milk to 1 cup, add 1 cup peach chunks

-- Kendy Sawyer (sweetfire@grove.net), November 19, 1999.

Cathryn, I think both of your questions will be answered in the Jan/ Feb issue of Countryside. Old-time jam recipes dont omit sugar entirely, but they use a lot less tham modern recipes. The secret seems to be in longer cooking which most modern cooks dont seem to want to mess with.

Bisquick recipes have often appeared in the magazine, and we have another in the next issue. (Not sure how it compares with the one posted here, but they all seem to be similar.)

-- jd (belanger@midway.tds.net), November 23, 1999.

The low-methoxyl pectin is GREAT! My mom has always used it, for when she wanted to cut the sugar in recipes, when she wanted to make no-sugar jam for us when we were on special allergy diets, and when she wanted to make honey-sweetened jams. The brand she used was Pomona's Universal Pectin. Most health food stores carry it, as well as a numper of seed suppliers. You might want to try Kitchen Krafts, too.

-- Becky Michelsen (beckymom@kjsl.com), January 26, 2000.