We made a large batch of my very berry jam last night and have just had some for morning tea - on home-baked bread of course.
So, here's the recipe...
Five cups of dessert gooseberries (the purple ones)
Three cups of raspberries (a mix of cultivated ones and wild ones is best)
One cup of blackberries
Small handful of blackcurrants (because that's all the blackbirds left us!)
Six cups of sugar (use jam sugar with pectin for a hard set; plain sugar for a soft to medium set)
Half a cup of lemon juice
Six cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
Wash the berries, trimming off any stems or bad bits. Blend the berries in batches and pour into a very large pan.
Add the sugar, lemon juice, cloves and cinnamon.
Bring to a slow boil over a medium heat. Use a spoon to remove any scum that comes to the surface. (Small children - and grown-ups with a sweet tooth - like having the scum drizzled over ice-cream. Or you can just stick your finger in it when it's cooled slightly and then lick it off!)
Boil for 10-15 minutes for a soft set, pourable jam. This can also be used on a vanilla ice-cream or with meringues and cream.
Boil for 20-40 minutes for a medium set. This is my preference - when you put a teaspoon of the hot jam on a chilled plate, it should form a nice blob that slowly rolls over the plate when it's tilted. A teaspoon dragged through it should leave a clear trail that closes slightly but doesn't flow totally together.
For a hard set, boil for 20-30 minutes (and use the jam sugar with pectin). When you put a teaspoon on a chilled plate, this should set into a blob that doesn't roll when the plate is tilted. A teaspoon dragged through should leave a trail that doesn't close up.
Ladle the jam into hot, sterilised jam jars; covered with waxed discs and put a metal lid on tight while the jam is still hot. If any of the lids don't seal when cooling, use them first. You should get enough jam for eight jars of jam.
I use rather large cups (more mug sized) BTW because it's easier than measuring weights etc, but if you keep the proportions the same with smaller or larger cups you should be all right.
If you don't want to use jam sugar but still want a hard set, peel and core a crab apple or small cooking apple. Chop it up fine and throw it in with the berries.
NOTE: This jam is very, very intensely flavoured so you won't need a lot of it. Oh, and be warned - all commercial jams will taste insipid after eating this...
Our next batch of jam will be gooseberry and raspberry (using the last of both), so stay tuned!
Stonehead's Very Berry Jam
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Stonehead
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Yes, we've been picking blackberries (wild, not many), raspberries (lots, both wild and cultivated), gooseberries (cultivated, vast amounts), blackcurrants (cultivated, a handful that the blackbirds left us), tayberries (cultivated, not many) and strawberries (cultivated, not many) for the past fortnight or so.greenbean wrote:Stonehead, this sounds lovely, are your blackberries ripe already, I am in stirling and I can't see any ripe ones near me
Our cultivated raspberries are doing well and should really start producing next year, but the dessert gooseberries have far surpassed expectations in their second year. The blackcurrants did well, but the blackbirds cleared most of them in a day!
The strawberries started well, but many of the flowers failed to develop into berries. I suspect losing our bees earlier this year was a major factor in this.
The tayberries should really come on next year, but the ones we've had have been superb.
We are also lucky enough to have half a dozen different patches of wild raspberries around the place, plus one small patch of blackberries.
We still have some tayberries, gooseberries and blueberries ripening, plus plums. The remaining berries will be eaten fresh, but I might make plum jam if we get enough plums (last year someone came in and stole the whole crop in one hit).
Oh, and we've just made another eight jars of jam tonight - gooseberry and raspberry this time. Much more mellow than our "Very Berry Jam" but also delicious.
