Berry fast Raspberry Jam (Preserves)

Member Name: unixgirl

Product:	Preserves
Date:	07/02/06 (1478 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: quick and simple to make

Disadvantages: none

I hate waste. I have a tendency to buy too many raspberries when they're in season (strawberries too). So at my grandmother's suggestion I tried making raspberry jam with left over raspberries that had gone a bit soft (this is also a great way to use raspberries or other berry fruit that you may have picked up cheap because its on or close to its sell by date). The cheapest place to buy raspberries is usually Asda, Tesco or Lidl. You can use frozen ones (this works out the cheapest option of all, 99p for 1kg in most supermarkets), but you must defrost them thoroughly before placing in the oven.


Ingredients:-

250g raspberries
250g caster sugar (if you don't have caster sugar, use normal sugar and put it through a blender to make the grain size finer)
A clean empty glass jar with lid (minimum size 300ml)


Method:


Preheat your oven to Gas Mark 4 (about 180C). Put all the raspberries into a large lasagne dish. Trust me the large area of the dish and the fruit spread out helps them cook more evenly. Place the dish in the oven for around 20 minutes. Then remove the dish and carefully stir the sugar into the fruit (which should resemble molten goo at this stage). Once all the sugar is stirred in, spoon the 'jam' into the clean jar. Once you have filled the jar, put the lid on and leave the jam to cool for 1-2 hours. Once cooled place the jar in the fridge. This jam will keep for between 7-10 days. For larger quantities of jam just multiply the quantities above accordinlgy. This jam is delicious on hot toast or scones.
This recipe can be used to make any 'berry' fruit jam. Raspberry and Bramble is a nice variation.

Enjoy!

Summary: Simple home made jam