And what recipes you've had success with. Thanks!

About the only sugar-free fruit jam I've liked so far is fruit butter.  I'm not always crazy about the jello result of using pectin in many recipes, preferring a soft-set, so much of the time I go for 4-6 quarts of cut-up fruit with a can of concentrated apple juice or white grape juice for the sweetening.  Cook it gently until it thickens by sheer evaporation although it does require watching toward the end to prevent scorching.  Definitely a cooked taste but the intense flavor of the fruit is lovely.  Last year's favorite was spiced pear butter with large shot of pear liquor I was gifted with the previous year.  Sheer yum and best use of Bartlett pears!

Yep, I canned the pear butter after adding lemon juice for sufficient acid.  Can't taste the lemon although I think it "brightens" the flavor of a fruit put-up.  Low or no-sugar recipes for jams often use concentrated apple or grape juice as they're definitely high in natural sweetness but imagine, if one wanted to take the time, other juices could be simmered into a concentrate to sweeten a jam recipe.  White grape juice isn't always easy to find in the store but it has the least obtrusive taste and color when combined with another fruit. 

FWIW, I took half a quart of cider that had turned hard and boiled it gently into a 1/4C of boiled cider concentrate which I used in plumping the dried fruit for Alton Brown's Free Range Fruitcake for Christmas.  Ohh, that was really good !  Going to repeat that next year with a gallon of cider and see if the results might be canned into 4oz jars to stretch through the year … King Arthur website sells bottles of boiled cider for their recipes at a dear price that I think can be done at home while using local pressed cider.

MissJudy and RuthMarie- Would you mind posting your sugar free jam recipes at FarmBell??

I would love to have a few of your favorites to go to. If anyone else out there has one to add I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

I have had great luck with both Ball's no-sugar pectin & Pomona.  I like Ball's a little better because it's less finicky (you don't have to worry about making the separate calcium chloride stuff).  I use 1C of sugar for every 3 C of fruit (I have done seedless raspberry, blackberry, and strawberry with this, and they all actually taste like FRUIT, instead of just sugar).  All the jams I made with this ratio were soft-set, which I think was perfect.  Firm enough to hold shape, but EASILY spreadable.  Both Pomona & Ball say that you can use honey too, which I would like to try sometime.  I think that would be delicious!  If your fruit is sweet enough (maybe peaches, pears, apples, plums…), you could easily get by with no added sweetener at all.

Having caught up with Miss Judy's comment; yes, pretty much what she said including the more pleasant fruit taste (I dislike the high sweet of commercial jams).  I've used both the low-sugar and pomona.  I lean more toward the pomona due to less cost, but just shows that you need to play with both and find your bliss.  I've been using the directions that come with the pectin package as a guide and would think any bush berry would fall under the same guide as blackberry or raspberry.  I confess I rarely do one fruit but am combining whatever is at the market or prize find of the week.  Since that is experimenting most of the time, I usually have soft-set which is my preference anyway.  I do recall reading somewhere that bush berries are able to set up well without high sugar and don't require as much pectin as stone fruit or citrus.

I will see if I can post the pear butter recipe in the next couple of days …..

Mulberries have been an obsession. I love everything about them. Is that weird??

 I am not opposed to blending them with other fruit as I still have summer berries in my freezer, and a little sugar is doable.  I was just looking at another blog that had a lemon marmalade recipe that called for 4 cups of lemon juice and 7 cups of sugar. That recipe is not for me.

 My Ball Blue Book is from the 1980's and doesnt have any really great sounding sugar free recipes either.

     Hoping that this weekend I will get a chance to give your suggestions a try. 

 Looking forward to the pear butter recipe.

Isnt it a surprise that BBB doesn't have more tried and true low/no sugar recipes? I know some sugar is advisable for proper storage and texture, but BBB is the Mothership. Where are the tries and true recipes??

     I think mulberries are more subtle than other berries but they have a LOT more juice than other berries. And they are huge, the Chernobyl Blackberry, hehe. I want to try a jelly . Seive out all those stems and seeds.