Photo: multikulinaria / Flickr

How can anybody resist having a rich ruby-red dollop of home-made raspberry jam on a slice of just buttered toast? Or with cream on a scone, fresh from the oven? This raspberry jam recipe requires nothing more than raspberries and sugar. The appeal of raspberry jam is not only its taste but its colour, so the trick is not to overcook it because you can end up with an unappealing brown raspberry jam if you’re not paying close attention.

Preparing the raspberry jam

You will need to put aside three-quarters of an hour to prepare for the jam and then allow for a cooking time of 20 minutes.

To start with, you will need to lay out nine squeaky clean jam jars with a capacity of 500 ml. Next, preheat your oven to 110 degrees Celsius. Measure out 2.8 kilograms of sugar and the same amount of fresh, flavourful raspberries. Wash the raspberries and check them, removing any undesirable fruit.

Using an ovenproof bowl, place the sugar into the centre of your preheated oven for not much longer than 10 minutes. This will facilitate the sugar dissolving quickly, once it is combined with the raspberries. Now, place the raspberries into a heavy-based pot and simmer them on a low heat for 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the stove once the juice is running and the fruit is tender.

Stir the heated sugar into the fruit – for about five minutes off the heat ‑ until it has completely dissolved. Place the pot back on the stove and bring the ingredients to a boil, cooking quickly for about five minutes or so.

Allow your raspberry jam to cool for about three minutes and then stir again to evenly distribute the fruit before you bottle it.

Tags: homemade