Once I bought jam sugar – finally finding it in Sainsbury’s after searching the aisles in Asda – I was a third of the way to making sweet raspberry jam.
The only other ingredients needed to make raspberry jam were lemon and fresh raspberries. Having never made jam before, I turned to the recipe shared by Sara Buenfeld on BBC Good Food.
As always, I had to make a few adjustments so I feared my raspberry jam would be ruined but it turned out more delicious than the shop-bought jam I had in my fridge.
For Sara’s recipe, she recommended 1kg of raspberry, 1kg of jam sugar (the one with pectin added), and the juice of one lemon.
The pack of raspberries I bought from Asda weighed 150g (for £2), which is the equivalent of 0.15kg.
Not needing to make a whole load of jam, the 150g pack suited me fine, so I balanced out the recipe by using 150g of jam sugar and a quarter of a lemon.
Sara’s recipe required sterilised jars and a preserving pan that is specifically made for making jam. While I had ramekins and a deep saucepan, I found that these logistics didn’t matter as much as I thought they would.
In Sara’s original recipe, she said: “Before you start, sterilise your jars and put a plate in the freezer to chill.”
I did put a little side dish in the freezer once I read on and saw that it’s only needed to test the consistency of the jam.
Sara continued: “Tip half the raspberries into a preserving pan [I used a saucepan] and add the lemon juice.
“Mash the berries to a pulp over the heat with a potato masher, then leave to cook for five minutes.”
Sara instructed: “Tip the cooked berries into a sieve over a bowl, then once all of the juice has drained off, firmly work the pulp through the sieve with a wooden spoon until you are left with just the seeds.”
I would recommend using a sieve as Sara suggested; I only had a colander (as I am still in the process of furnishing my new place) which made the jam slightly chunkier.
As a fan of seeds anyway, it didn’t matter too much to me that I have a very seedy raspberry jam. Sara’s next part of the recipe includes tipping the juice and pulp back into the pan and stirring in the sugar.
The recipe read: “Heat gently, then add the remaining whole raspberries. Bring to the boil, then boil rapidly for five minutes.
“Remove from the heat and drop a little jam onto the chilled plate. Now push your finger through it – it should wrinkle and look like jam. If it doesn’t, boil for two minutes, then test again.”
My raspberry jam had the perfect consistency after the third test, and having a little taste, I was surprised how lovely the jam was.
Pouring my jam into a little ramekin, I then went on to taste my store-bought jam thinking there wouldn’t be much difference – how wrong was I! My jam tastes so much better than the store-bought jam and I am so pleased about that.
