I've been putting off making this jam for about 6 weeks now. That's because the last time I made jam (strawberry), I burnt it. Not only did it taste bad, but it took me over an hour to scrub down my hob. I was so focussed on getting that temperature high enough to get the jam to set, that I completely over did it. I kept on boiling and boiling, waiting for my thermometer to reach the specified 104deg celcius (219deg Farenheit) - and it never did. Eventually I called it a day and canned it only to find that it had indeed set very well but had also burnt very well. Instead of a lush ruby red, my jam was black.

Yesterday, however I reminded myself, all mistakes are an education and that it was time to educate myself further on the topic of jam.

I have no idea what recipe I was using when I burnt it, but for today, I used one I found on epicurious.com consisting of:

• 4 cups of frozen rasperberries (picked form my garden)
• 4 cups of sugar

Now 4 cups of sugar to make a few jars of jam sounded awfully heavy to me, however the author of the recipe was very particular not to reduce the amount of sugar.

The method was a little different to what I had seen before, involving heating up the sugar in the oven before adding it to the boiling berries. One of the reasons I picked this recipe is because it had a short boiling time of just 5 minutes and I was hopeful that even I couldn't burn jam in 5 minutes.

Well I have to admit, the jam looks lovely. Deep ruby red jam with a perfect texture and in terms of taste, I could really taste the raspberries. However.. for me personally, it is just a little bit too sweet. I suppose the amount of sugar is the compromise for not using pectin sugar although I think next time, I'll chance it with a little less.

If you would like to know full details for this recipe, here is the link to the website I found it on:
Epicurious: Old-Fashioned Raspberry Jam

~Mrs Homestead-Wannabe @18th October 2023