It’s July now and the new season of raspberries are coming through so enjoy them while you can, but dont forget they won’t last forever so you might want to preserve that taste for the winter.
Some people are afraid of making jam, its got a bad reputation everybody thinks jam making is for the WI and Granny, but not me I love making jam and there is nothing better than preserving that taste of raspberry for a gloomy January morning breakfast.
Method
500g fresh or frozen raspberries
625g of preserving sugar
the zest of one lemon
if you are using frozen raspberries take them out of the freezer to thaw
place the rasps into a heavy bottomed pan with the sugar and lemon zest
using a wooden spoon mix together well so that the rasps and sugar combine, if you dont do this you run the risk of carameling the sugar and you end up with a toffee like jam instead of that fresh raspberry flavour that you will be craving in January. Cook the rasps on a low heat for 35-40mins until all the sugar has disolved.
Sterilise four jam jars in the oven by washing them clean then placing the jar and lids seperately into the oven at 150oc for 10mins. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for five minutes then pour the jam into the jar and place the lid straight on as this will cause a vacume and help the jam to keep longer.
August 8th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Microwave jam (if you have a large enough microwave and plastic microwave bowl)
800gm frozen raspberries (or up to 1kg if flavour or quality of fruit is less than perfect – e.g. end of season)
1kg jam sugar (jam sugar has more pectin than preserving sugar)
or
1kg granulated sugar plus 1 sachet Silver Spoon pectin powder (most branches of Morrisons)
Zap the raspberries until most of them have thawed then break the lumps with moderate violence and a potato masher. The sugar can be added during this process.
Short bursts of zapping and stirring until ALL the sugar has dissolved.
Microwave until boiling point is reached.
Maintain a rolling boil for three minutes. The beauty of microwaving in a plastic bowl is that if the jam rises to the top of the bowl, just press the stop button and the jam immediately subsides.
Ladle into the jars. I use new honey jars and never warm them – in the thousands of jars used – I buy boxes of 6 dozen at a time – I have only had 4 broken ones. Two were found broken when I opened the boxes, and 2 returned used jars cracked in the dishwasher. Another benefit is that a cool jar gives you time to screw the lid on before you burn your fingers. NOTE:- fit the lid before you fill the next jar – you will get a far better vaccuum seal this way.
As you can see jam making is not rocket science – a Black Art maybe – but certainly not rocket science !
Have fun and get jamming. The only problem is that the kids won’t go back to the supermarket rubbish after they have had home-made jam!
John Leek
(John’s Jollop)