Killer raspberry jams recipes please !

[bobnewboy]

Hi All,

Well, here in our Somerset garden we’re into soft fruit harvesting time. We have blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries (with some wild strawberries mixed in), and rhubarb in varying quantities. It has been a good year so far....

Hugh (Big Red) has posted recipes for blackcurrant / redcurrant jelly, and gooseberry jam. Tengu has posted a recipe for redcurrant sauce. I think the rhubarb will go into some vodka (burp), and with apple into pies and crumbles.

So I need a killer, proven recipe for raspberry jam. I don't think we will bother with raspberry jelly as the pips are easily more tolerable than those in blackcurrants.

Let me know what you have to share

Cheers, Bob

 

[Woody girl]

I love to make flavoured vodka and one easy one is raspberry vodka. Rather than waste the vodka soaked berries I add them to the jam pan with fresh ones and replace the small amount of water with a glug of vodka instead. Hey presto ! Raspberry vodka jam...... you'll never buy it in the shops!

 

[Tengu]

I can make jam but seldom do; I dont eat it after all.

One thing to remember with things like raspberries and strawberries is they are low in pectin.

 

[Robson Valley]

I've got tubs of frozen raspberries. Maybe 2C milk in a bowl. Maybe 1-2C frozen raspberries in the milk to thaw.
Stir in enough scratch buckwheat pancake mix to make a good gooey batter.
Batter into a preheated pan.

The raspberries cook as I cook one side. Find a plate, knife and fork.
Flipping the pancakes, the cooked raspberries burst and the juice gets soaked up in the pancakes.
Works OK with blue berries and chopped strawberries.
As a rule, I don't put any sweet syrup on those. The sugar masks the fruit taste than I'm after.

I can buy a citrus pectin preparation which could make jelly out of water.
My poor old guts can't take a big sugar load any more.

If I wanted jam, I'd cook the fruit then slake some corn starch in cold water and add that for thickening.
Same stunt as making gooey Asian sweet & sour sauce and the fruit is already red!

 

[Tengu]

Ah, but the idea behind the sugar is to preserve the fruit long term.

Anything else negates that ideal.

 

[Allison McKenzie]

My mum uses corn flour too. Sugar my be ideal, but it makes you fat. (that is what she said to me)

 

[Robson Valley]

I never get enough of those back yard fruits for more than 3-4 pint jars in the back of the fridge.
Last pint of cherry mush and 2 x 250 ml jars of lime marmalade and I'll start again.

Once I learned that the sugar was masking the fruit taste, I decided that 1/2 of the sugar in the recipe was enough.
I understand the principle of osmotic preservation, just don't want to do that any more.

 

[punkrockcaveman]

If you want to cheat, buy jam sugar. It works every time, but not as satisfying as doing it properly.

 

[Robson Valley]

This is a white bread and Miracle Whip village.
Sometimes, it seems there's nothing any more exotic here than a banana.

 

[bobnewboy]

Well, perhaps my request was a bit too simple... . I have now made 5 jars of raspberry jam, to a simple recipe I found on the web. I have also made 5 jars of blackcurrant jelly by following Big Red's Redcurrant Jelly recipe. So I think we're fixed up for breakfast spreads for a while at least.

Its a bit of a thread fork, but our raspberries are going mad in this warm, and often wet weather. We seem to need to pick ripe berries every two to three days. Today we picked 2.7kg of them, along with some peas (Jaguar), and sugar snap mangetout. Our fruit cage is in full production, and very nice too

Cheers, Bob

 

[Woody girl]

Make some raspberry vodka with those raspberries. It's delicious.
Bottle of vodka
Sugar
Raspberries
Put into large jar,shake daily, filter and bottle when raspberries go pale and almost white.
Add more sugar if nessasary to get the best taste. Better to use too little at first otherwise it gets too sticky and sickly. I usualy taste check weekly adding a large spoonfuls at a time untill it's to your taste.
The spent berries are nice spooned over a good vanilla ice cream.

 

[TriggerRover]

Sorry for the late reply...... i mithered my Mrs for her notes from my great grandma..... and the two lines below are all there was!

Raspberry Jam​

To each pound of fruit allow 1.25lbs of sugar. Warm the sugar in the oven. Put the fruit in a pan over a gentle heat and mash with a wooden spoon. As the juice runs out, add the sugar and boil fast for 3 minutes.


As I remember (and as my Mrs now does) they used to warm the washed jars in the oven (lids an all) on a low heat. Put a small plate in the freezer then boil the jam (mrs uses a fancy jam thermometer now) grandma would just chuck a small knob of butter into the boiling jam to 'stop it foaming' apparently, and boil it quite ferociously for three or so minutes.... she would test to see if it'd boiled enough by getting the ice cold plate out and putting a teaspoon of the jam onto it if it doesn't set satisfactorily she would just boil it for another couple of minutes. Then pour into the jars etc. Over the years my mrs has made excellent jam, then sometimes over boiled it and its been like raspberry tarmac and occasionally under boiled it and it's been a bit thin.

 

[Woody girl]

I've just made three jars of mixed fruit jam. I had just bottled the cherry brandy so I used them along with some left over blueberries raspberry and strawberries plus a handful each of blackcurrants and loganberry. The last few on the bushes.
It smells wonderful with the branded cherries in the mix. It's now cooling and hAvington tasted it before I cleaned the pan.. it's amazing. Best I've ever made!.
I love to just chuck things together and make things like this. Saves wasting even a handful of fruit that you just don't know what to do with. Sometimes I weigh it, write it on the bag,then freeze and do it later when I've got enough to make it worth making some jam.

 

[Toddy]

I make NotJam and NotJelly from extra fruit when I've enough jam made.
Basically it's the same mix as jam and jelly, add a squirt of lemon, juice and then just slowly bring it up to the boil. Take it off the heat and while it's cooling a little wash the kilner jars in really hot water. Seals into boiling water. Set the pressure cooker on with an inch of water and either a trivet or a flannel in the bottom.
Hot fill the jars to the normal level and seal, and tighten on brass rings. Put them into the pressure cooker and slowly bring it up to 15lbs pressure. Take it off the heat and let it cool down.
When the lid lifts easily off the pressure cooker, bring the jars out and set them aside on a rack until the next morning. Check your seals. Any that haven't gotten a good seal go into the fridge and get used up within three weeks or so.

I use NotJam and NotJelly to mix with plain chopped apples to make crumble, or as the fruity layer on top of cheesecake, or as part of the filling of a pie. Just mind you won't need any extra sugar with the apples or pears. It's also awfully good over yoghurt or muesli or as a layer in a sponge or blackforest gateau.

M

 

[bobnewboy]

Well....We now have 8 jars of blackcurrant jelly ( I followed BR’s video for redcurrant jelly as before), 8 jars of whole raspberry preserve, 8 jars of raspberry jelly (set with apple pectin - thanks again BR! ), and many kilos of raspberries and blackcurrants left over in the freezer for making jam at a later date. I also made a trial bottle of raspberry gin, which is now chilling in the fridge for later consumption- thanks WG for the idea.

For some happy reason our raspberry bushes have been extremely productive this year, and the blackcurrants did very well too. It must have been the hot/wet/hot weather cycles we’ve had which had really boosted production this year (???). The only other suggestion I’ve had is to try some mixed blackcurrant and raspberry jelly, in the proportions 1:3. This was a recommendation from one of our neighbours, so I’ll give it a bash when we’ve bought some more sugar....

Cheers, Bob