Raspberry jam

With being housebound due to the snow most of last week, my preserving instincts started to rise again. It does become a bit of an obsession with me and one that sometimes I do have to control. I think it must be a deep rooted urge to store ( a bit like a squirrel) and to nurture and provide for my family.

This morning there were three punnets of raspberries looking at me when I opened the fridge at breakfast time ( the other punnet was eaten last night for tea and delicious it was too!)

and being very mindful of the recent report about throwing away and wasting food I though I had better do something with them promptly.

Working out the quantity of  sugar needed!

I resorted to my trusty cook book - the internet!. Actually I often spend hours perusing my cookbooks and the recipes I have collected over the years but today I thought I would see what the world wide web had to offer:

I loved Leda's story about her father who kept her potted gifts for something special- this is such a lovely story and actually struck a note with me. In my early days of preserving I found it difficult to disturb and open my jars and loved having a full cupboard. Now I would rather they were opened and enjoyed as I know there are more recipes to try and I need more space to make more!

I love my French copper jam pan!

I love recipes that have a bit of history to them or at least an anecdote and so I thought I would share these posts with you. In fact I used a combination of  recipes from Very Berry handmade's Aunt Kath's recipe and Sofya's recipe .  Sofya is from USSR but is now living in Winconsin America. You can find Sofya's recipe here

So how did I get on:


Well firstly I didn't read the recipe properly - I should of heated the raspberries in the pan on the hob whilst the sugar heated in the oven- thats what happens when you try to rush things- I don't think it made to much of a difference. Although I would choose to heat the raspberries next time. Also I used jam sugar -which has pectin added and I did get a good set. Sometimes I like a runnier jam.
The raspberries as you can see were not the dark sweet juicy ones of summer/ autumn and so inevitably the taste isn't quite up to the jams of the later season. Finally I didn't wait for the jam to cool for a few minutes before bottling- as you can see the jars on the left of the pictures - the fruit has floated to the top where as a few minutes later the fruit remained evenly through out the jam!  All in all I  achieved what I set out to do and I have a lovely jam to have with my tea today!

Next time I  want to try this raspberry and jalopeno jam - it sounds very intriguing!