Jaci Hicken, our seasoned journalist and trained chef, shares her wealth of knowledge on growing, cooking, and preserving homegrown produce. In this edition, Jaci is making raspberry jam.
Thanks to Delia from the Echuca CWA for reaching out with her suggestion for what can be cooked with all the frozen raspberries still in the freezer.
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Dried raspberries, fruit drops, raspberry syrup to pour over ice cream — these all sound like fun ways to use up the raspberries.
Somewhere in my files is a recipe for raspberry fruit pastilles that are just like the dinosaur lollies, made with real fruit (juice).
As I’m watching my waistline (like always) and can’t help but eat what comes out of the kitchen, I’m leaving raspberry fruit pastilles as a recipe for later.
Over the weekend, the nets started to go on the raspberry patch, as it is only about two weeks until the harvest of these little flavour-power-punch fruits begins again for the summer.
And the first thing anyone who has homegrown raspberries, including me, wants to cook is raspberry jam.
There is nothing more delightful than starting your day with a spread of raspberry jam on toast.
If decadence is more your style, raspberry jam can be spread between pancakes or swirled into raspberry and white chocolate muffins.
A couple of heated spoonfuls can be poured over a chocolate raspberry cake to finish it off, adding a slight fruity sweetness to the chocolate’s bitterness.
With so many uses, raspberry jam is always found in my pantry.
When you start on your jam-making journey, raspberry jam is a good preserve to begin with, as it is a relatively easy recipe.
The recipe can be easily modified to the quantity of berries you have, as well as be adapted to other berries, such as blackberries or boysenberries.
You would look for a different recipe to make strawberry or blueberry jam, as the fruit has a different structure and cooks slightly differently.
Jaci can cook raspberry jam.
Photo by
Jaci Hicken
Raspberry jam recipe
Ingredients
1 kilogram of berries
1 kilogram of sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Method
Place berries in a pan. Add the lemon juice. Over medium heat, mash with a wooden spoon, stirring until the pulp starts to boil. Boil for 5 minutes.
Add sugar and stir to dissolve. Return the jam to a boil quickly and cook rapidly for 5 minutes.
Test the setting point. If not set, return to a quick boil for 2 minutes. You can over-boil the jam to a point where it may not set.
Cool slightly before bottling and sealing.
Makes approximately 6 x 250ml jars.
The test batch for this recipe made five and a half jars, which you can see in the behind-the-scenes video on The RIV app.
If you have something you want Jaci to cook with raspberries, as the season is just about to start, share it with her at jaci.hicken@mmg.com.au
