As old school as it gets. Fruit and sugar alchemy.
I try and make this every summer so I can savour the flavour of fresh raspberries all the way through winter. Making fresh raspberry jam is a little secret that avid jam makers have long known about and should share more! Because there is no cooking this jam really does taste like fresh raspberries. I like to add some lemon juice just to accentuate the flavour even more. The raspberries simply leak their juices into the sugar, you stir a little…I sometimes leave overnight…and heh presto you really do have jam. The jam is not set as there is not enough pectin… nor the temperature required for the setting but it hardly matters – the taste is heavenly.
In this batch I added a few red and white currants due to over exuberance at the market! I love the extra tartness they add. As there is no exceedingly hot sugar involved this is a brilliant “first jam” for kids.
Gadgets & Gizmos
Clean jam jars. Now if you pour this jam into heated jars you are kind of defeating the purpose here…I sterilise my jars and lids with a solution of bicarbonate of soda. And do remember, this jam is for the fridge. A large bowl, a spoon and if you have one a jam funnel (also sterilised).
Ingredients
I defy anybody not to make jam when they see such fruit at the market!
The classic proportion is a 1:1 ratio of sugar to fruit by weight. I like to go a little less and have 60% fruit to 40% sugar and keep the resulting “jam” in the fridge. When you stray into lower sugar territory always remember that you are flirting with the preserving properties of sugar.
My no cook raspberry jam would look like this:
600g raspberries
400g sugar
1 lemon squeezed (it makes the jam a bit more liquid but I like the taste) and zested. The zest is just great in raspberry jam
Except I can never restrain myself at the berry stall so the minimum I would make would be
1200g raspberries
800g sugar
2 lemons juiced and zested
Which is approximately 8 small jars of 250ml so a motley collection of 6-8 jars if you are recycling.
How To
Mix all the ingredients together and leave until the raspberry juice has dissolved the sugar. Its a good idea to just leave the fruit covered in sugar in a large bowl in the fridge overnight and by morning you will have the jam made.
Pot into sterilised jars and keep in the fridge. I love to eat with yoghurt or of course on scones or I use it a lot in cakes and tarts. It makes for the most beautiful Victoria Sponge cake filling.
- The classic proportion is a 1:1 ratio of sugar to fruit by weight. I like to go a little less and have 60% fruit to 40% sugar and keep the resulting "jam" in the fridge. When you stray into lower sugar territory always remember that you are flirting with the preserving properties of sugar.
- 600g raspberries
- 400g sugar
- 1 lemon squeezed (it makes the jam a bit more liquid but I like the taste) and zested. The zest is just great in raspberry jam
- Except I can never restrain myself at the berry stall so the minimum I would make would be
- 1200g raspberries
- 800g sugar
- 2 lemons juiced and zested
- Which is approximately 8 small jars of 250ml so a motley collection of 6-8 jars if you are recycling.
- Mix all the ingredients together and leave until the raspberry juice has dissolved the sugar. Its a good idea to just leave the fruit covered in sugar in a large bowl in the fridge overnight and by morning you will have the jam made.
- Pot into sterilised jars and keep in the fridge. I love to eat with yoghurt or of course on scones or I use it a lot in cakes and tarts. It makes for the most beautiful Victoria Sponge cake filling.