Our friend Helga makes a delicious fresh tasting raspberry jam with a stunning vibrant colour. She revealed that her secret is to use preserving sugar with added pectin, this cuts down on the amount of time needed to cook the jam, so maintaining the taste and colour of the berries.

  See here for the raspberry jam recipe in more detail.

I used raspberries picked from our local Pick Your Own farm, much more fun and half the price of buying them in the supermarket, it also meant I could select large firm berries ideal for making jam.

Recipe Costs

£4.74 1 kg raspberries (PYO cost)
£1.64 1 kg preserving sugar (with added pectin)

£6.38 Total
£3.18 per kg of jam (half the price of luxury raspberry jam)

I used 1kg of raspberries as that was just about the amount I picked, the recipe can be done in smaller quantities if wished, but is best done in several batches if using more than 1 kg, as it takes to long to raise the volume of liquid up to setting point.

The raspberries are placed in a large preserving pan, and heated slowly until they start to simmer in their own juice.

After simmering for 20 minutes, the same weight of preserving sugar is added.

The pan is kept on the heat and brought to boiling point as quickly as possible, stirring to make sure that the sugar is dissolved.

The jam is kept boiling until it reaches setting point, I test for this using the wrinkle test on a plate taken from the freezer.

This happened quickly in this case, the jam was ready in about 5 minutes.

The jam is potted into sterilised jars using a jam funnel,  essential if you don't want hot sticky jam splashed everywhere.

After filling the jars a waxed paper disc should be placed on top of the jam, before immediately putting the lid on.

Using the preserving sugar worked well with this jam, it's a good consistancy with a nice even spread of seeds.

Recipe Timings

5 mins Preparation
20 mins cooking raspberries
10 mins to reach boiling point
5 mins boiling
15 minutes potting

Taste Test
We tried this jam out with freshly baked scones and cream.
The whole combination worked a treat, the vibrant colour of the jam contrasting against the pale cream, and the fresh raspberry taste really coming through well.