If I had to pick a perfect pectin

It would be one in which I didn't have to use tons of sugar and that consistently produced jammy jams and jellies that jelled.

I thought that this didn't exist. My mom and I always used Certo Liquid Pectin with excellent results. We tried some of the Ball brand pectins, but found that Certo was almost guaranteed to work. The one downside to Certo- the exorbitant amount of sugar required to activate the pectin. How exorbitant you must be wondering? How about 4 cups of mashed fruit to 7 cups of sugar? It's kind of a lot don't you think?

Always on the quest to find the perfect product, I purchased some pectin at Whole Foods called "Pomona's Universal Pectin" which advertised as a low sugar or sugar alternative pectin. The pectin worked off of a calcium activation instead of a sugar activation like most other pectins, and you could use sugar or honey as a sweetener. This intrigued me.

I tried it yesterday, with fabulous results. The strawberry jam is very cohesive. I can tell just by turning the jars around. The flavor when it was warm reminded me of strawberry fruit roll-ups except that there is nothing artificial in them. The best part? I only needed to use 3/4 cup of sugar for the same 4 cups of mashed fruit!

The one downside? Since I'm not dumping 3 lbs. of sugar in with the fruit, my yield is about half what it usually is. With Certo's recipe for strawberry jam I would have yielded about 8 8 oz. jars, but with Pomona's I only yielded 4 8 oz. jars. Depressing.

The flavor after it has cooled and sealed? Indescribable.

So here's my conundrum: I am a purist. Jam by definition must have equal parts (based on weight) mashed fruit and sugar, while a fruit spread has almost no sugar in it. So in that sense, I want to make jam when I set out to make jam. Plus, to be a realist, it would be awfully expensive to make large batches of fruit spread. I'll find the middle road, and when I do I'll let you know.