I heart jam, but find store-bought ones just way too sweet. Making your own is easy enough, and you get to load up on the fruit and cut down the sugar. My spin on it is the addition of vanilla bean paste. Subtle, but it makes all the difference in flavour.
The secret to delicious and vibrantly coloured jam is rapid cooking in small batches. This recipe is for 1 large or 2 small jars and they will keep in the fridge unopened for up to a month.
- 350g raspberries (this can be replaced with strawberries, or any other berry you want)
- 300g white sugar
- 1/8 cup fresh lemon juice, strained
- 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
Sort raspberries, discarding any that are too soft, mouldy or generally suspicious. Rinse them and drain them well. If you're using frozen berries, thaw and save all their juice.
Stir the raspberries (including the juice if using thawed berries), sugar, lemon juice and vanilla bean paste together in a bowl and let the mixture chillax, stirring gently once or twice until the sugar has dissolved. This will take about 2 hours, or if you're really lazy, just let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Make sure you've washed the glass jam jar in boiling hot water and are keeping it hot.
Chuck the berry mixture into a large skillet and bring it to a boil, stirring constantly with a straight ended spatula, and boil rapidly for 6 minutes.
The mixture will begin to thicken, so keep stirring constantly. Remove from heat when it's thick and can't reduce any more.
There will be some foam on the top, but if you let the jam stand for a few minutes, the foam should subside. If it doesn't, simply skim off with a spoon.
Ladle hot preserves into the hot jar, leaving 1/4-inch clear space. Heat a pot of water on the stove, when it comes to a boil, place filled and sealed jar of jam in the water bath for 10 minutes to pasteurise.
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