Raspberry Jam: The Recipe

A good recipe for raspberry jam can fill your pantry with some delicious treats to consume when the time of fresh fruits has passed. Such jam is easy to preserve and you can obtain a larger quantity of it, if you know to add sugar up front. This will also help you to preserve the flavor of the jam. Here is how you can prepare delicious raspberry jam.

For this recipe, you will need two cups of ripe berries, previously cleaned, two cups of sugar and a little butter or margarine, if you like the idea.

Make sure that all the berries that you will use for your jam are fresh, ripe and that they do not have any dried berries or debris among them. Rinse the fruit in cold water. Now, take the mason jars with lids and rims and put them in a pot. With a little bit of water on the bottom, cover the pot, and boil them there for about ten minutes. The berries must be put into a pot along with an equal amount of sugar that must be poured over them. Mix them well together especially in the corners of the pot, so sugar does not get stuck there. This mixture will become wet, as the juice will be drawn from the fruits.

This mixture will be then put on the stove, at medium heat. In order to avoid burning, stir every once in a while and make the mixture boil. After this moment, you can reduce the temperature, and let the mixture there until the oily liquids appear on the surface. Use a pot that will prevent the jam from boiling over. The ideal temperature is 104 C (219 F).

The hot mixture will be poured into sterilized jars. If you use a canning funnel, you will minimize the mess. The jar rim must be then cleaned with a towel, so you can seal it well. The frothy foam from the surface can be eaten, but it is less tasty then the rest of the jam, so you can take it out. A bit of butter added to the mixture will minimize the quantity of foam produced. A sterile lid must seal the jar.

The jars will be put in a water bath canner or a pot. To avoid the jars making contact with the bottom of the pot, put them on a rack. Hot water will then be added to cover the jars by one or two inches. The canner will be brought to a gentle boil, and let like this for ten minutes. You can then take the jars from the water with jar tongs and put the jars on a clean towel to cool down.

It will take about 24 hours so that the jars are perfectly cool. When the metal lids make a sound that signals that there is vacuum created in the jar. That will ensure perfect sealing and preservation for your raspberry jam.

Author : Pearle Tsuji
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