As favors for our wedding last year, Jason and I decided to make a bunch of different homemade jams and give each guest a jar. Why this occurred to me, when I had little to no experience making jam, I have no idea. But aside from some bad pre-wedding dreams of giving botulism to everyone I loved on the same day, the plan went miraculously well.

So when I realized a couple weeks ago that I didn’t know how to bake, I resolved to make some jam for the Havemeyer Sugar Sweets Festival rather than botching a pie or cake. Jam, to me, is easier to deal with than baked goods because you can taste it and make adjustments before you’re done. Plus, the process of sealing the cans is a little like a mad science experiment. I am always inordinately pleased by that little sucking sound that the lids make when a vacuum forms inside the cooling jars.

For those of you who find the idea of preserving something intimidating, here are the basics: you put some sweet or sour stuff in a jar, you wipe off the rim and screw one of those two-piece canning lids on it, you put the whole thing in boiling water for a while, and then it pretty much takes care of itself. (Okay, there are a few more details you should probably mind, but not many. If you find yourself having botulism nightmares, check out Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan as a good resource book.)

Anyway, the fun part is making the jam itself, and for the festival, I went with an autumn theme: apple pie jam and cranberry orange jam. Here’s the recipe for the cranberry variety, which has a yummy sweet-tart thing going and a beautiful ruby hue:

You can look for these babies at the Sugar Sweets Festival.

Cranberry Orange Jam

1½  pounds fresh cranberries
3 juice oranges
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon pectin
1 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
1 cup white sugar

Wash the cranberries and start simmering them with about a cup and a half of water. When they’re nice and saucy, add the juice and the zest from the oranges, the cinnamon and the pectin. Bring to a boil and then add the sugars. (You can adjust to your preferred level of sweetness here.) Bring the whole thing to a rapid boil that you can’t stir down and keep it there for a full minute. Remove from the heat and pour it into hot canning jars. Process the jars for ten minutes in boiling water. Enjoy!