Sweet Biscuits and Homemade Jam

This recipe is the only successful recipe I have made from Babycakes Vegan, Gluten-Free, and (Mostly) Sugar-Free Recipes from New York's Most Talked-About Bakery by Erin McKenna (see my review of this cookbook) . I call them sweet biscuits but it is a recipe for the base of her strawberry shortcakes. This recipe calls for spelt four (which is not gluten free-one of my major issues with her "gluten-free" cookbook). I used the whole grain variety and my sister tried it successfully with the white spelt. This would probably work with all purpose flour as well. I topped it with some quick homemade berry jam.

This jam is so easy to make. It requires no pectin and no canning abilities whatsoever! It obviously won't last as long as the type you can but would last a week or two refrigerated. It is a Martha Stewart recipe. I used 3 cups of frozen berries (a mix of blueberries, raspberries and marionberries), 1 cup of sugar and the zest of one lemon. I combined it all in a saucepan then followed Martha's directions:

"Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook, stirring and skimming foam from surface, until mixture reaches 221 degrees on a candy thermometer, 5 to 10 minutes. To test, remove mixture from heat. Pour a small amount of jam on a cold plate and transfer to freezer, for 2 to 3 minutes. If mixture gels, it is ready to fill. If not, return to heat and retest. "

I did use a candy thermometer but if you don't have one, boil the berries about ten minutes then try the freezer test. Once it passed the freezer test, I put it in a jar and refrigerated it. It is very easy, makes great jam and you control how much sugar you add!