It’s true. I haven’t blogged in quite a while.
Life has a tendency to get in the way of “extra” activities, and I am not immune from being overly busy and bogged down with day to day craziness. You know, like work. Work, work and more work.
Oh, and a little thing called a wedding.
Yes, Casey and I got married in June. Prepare to be inundated with our amazing wedding photos by Sara Tro Photography (who is insanely wonderful, by the way).
It was a fabulous day. Really, probably the best day of my life. People always say that, but it is certainly the most memorable day I can think of, and it was perfect. Our wedding was at Laurel Creek Manor in Sumner, Washington. We were super happy with our venue and with our caterer, Snuffins Catering.
All those months of planning and anticipation led up to what seemed to be the fastest day of my life. Thankfully, we can relive it through the photographs because it is truly a blur. Everything, from the weather, to the vendors, to the food, to the party, went off without a hitch.
For our favors, we canned raspberry jam with fresh local raspberries. This seemed like a fabulous idea, except that canning 150 half-pints of jam is truly an exhausting undertaking. With my parents’ help, though, we were able to bust it out in one day. Let’s just say that Henry Ford really was on to something with that whole assembly line method thing.
I was doubtful that after the cost of all of the canning supplies and fruit that the jam favors would be less expensive than purchasing jam from the store for our favors. But after doing the math, I am happy to say that all of our hard work did turn out to be cost effective, and not to mention, much more special for our guests. This was actually the first time I had ever canned jam. I can now officially say I’m a pro after doing that many batches. Much easier than I thought after we got going.
We cut circles of fabric in our colors for the tops of the jams, and the labels were made by the wonderful Blondie & Company and can be purchased for your own wedding here.
Months later, I am still hearing our guests’ love of this jam, which warms my heart because with every peanut butter and jelly sandwich or morning toast, they remembered a little piece of our special day.
Raspberry Jam
4 cups prepared fruit (buy about 2 qt. fully ripe red raspberries)
6-1/2 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl
1/2 tsp. butter or margarine
1 pouch CERTO Fruit Pectin
We enjoyed the recipe so much that I canned raspberry jam again this summer. It was the perfect opportunity to make these Jam Thumbprint Cookies as a whole new way to enjoy the jam, and to remember our wedding.
Ina Garten’s Jam Thumbprint Cookies
By Ina Garten from Food Network
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash
7 ounces sweetened flaked coconut
Raspberry and/or apricot jam
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
In an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until they are just combined and then add the vanilla. Separately, sift together the flour and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a floured board and roll together into a flat disk. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.
Roll the dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. (If you have a scale they should each weigh 1 ounce.)
Dip each ball into the egg wash and then roll it in coconut. Place the balls on an ungreased cookie sheet and press a light indentation into the top of each with your finger or a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon, as I did.
Drop 1/4 teaspoon of jam into each indentation.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the coconut is a golden brown. Cool and serve.
Note: I just made these cookies again and used preserve instead of jam and it ran out of the cookies. Apparently, only jam works in this recipe. See the difference between jam and preserves here.
4 Comments
Man this jam looks amazing. And might I add your husband is a handsome man. Even more importantly you are simply the most beautiful woman in the world. Your husband is obviously a very lucky man.
Why thank you. He is an amazing man
What a beautiful wedding! Love the cake. This is probably the most unique wedding favor I’ve seen. Such a personal touch but I can imagine how labor intensive it was!
Simply amazing! Thank you for sharing all of the amazing photos and details! Love you both!
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[...] down. It’s pretty much the same process every time. If you’re crazy, you can even can hundreds of jars in one day like I did for our wedding (although I don’t recommend [...]
[...] pro at canning and jam-making, and even made homemade jam for each of the guests that attended her wedding last year – about 150 people! When she offered to teach Roxanne and I the basics of both of [...]
[...] only wish I would have seen this before I made jam for our wedding! We cut out 150 rounds of fabric, which was both time consuming and [...]