31 Days of Handmade Christmas Gifts: Day 7 - Chocolate Raspberry Sauce

I hope that some of you are starting to think of your gifts for this Christmas!  I know that I am determined to get my Christmas gifts made way before Christmas, so this is really challenging me to make up my mind early!  Speaking of making up your mind, if you have families that you give gifts to, I find that it works nice to give the gift of food to the entire family, instead of trying come up with individual gifts.   Since we are in the harvest season right now, I always try to come up with some of the harvest that I can give in some form to my friends and family at Christmas time by canning it.

This year's gift is a jar of Homemade Chocolate Raspberry Sauce made from raspberries that we picked ourselves.

Aren't those raspberries wonderful looking?  Friends of ours offered to let us come pick and we jumped at the chance to get free raspberries!

And here is the glory!  Isn't that jar of canned goods just the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?  Now, I may add a set of sundae cups and an ice cream scoop with it in a basket, or just give this as a great hostess gift.  Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Raspberry Sundae Sauce

from The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

1/2 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder

1 package (1.75 oz) regular powdered fruit pectin

4 1/2 cups crushed red raspberries

4 tbsp lemon juice

6 3/4 cups granulated sugar

1. Prepare canner, jars and lids.
2. In a medium glass bowl, combine cocoa powder and pectin, stirring until evenly blended.  Set aside.
3. In a large stainless steel saucepan, place crushed raspberries and lemon juice.  Whisk in pectin mixture until dissolved.  Bring to a boil over high heat, stirring frequently.  Add sugar all at once for 1 minute, stirring constantly.  Removed from heat and skim off foam.
4. Ladle hot sundae topper into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space.  Remove air bubbles and adjust head space, if necessary, by adding hot sundae topper.  Wipe rim. Center lid on jar.  Screw band down until resistance is met, then increase to fingertip-tight.
5. Place jars in canner, ensuring they are completely covered with water.  Bring to a boil and process for 10 minutes.  Remove canner lid.  Wait 5 minutes, then remove jars, cool and store.

There it is - the recipe for yummy goodness!  You can serve it over ice cream, cheesecake or fruit.  My kids love it so much, that they don't want to give it away for Christmas, so we'll have to see!

Check out all my other 31 Days of Handmade Christmas Gifts here.  Also, be sure to check out all those blogs that I love to link up, over there in the right hand column.