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Jam, Mixed, Superior
Take equal measures of fruit, black cherries picked and stoned, black currants, and raspberries. Boil the cherries twenty minutes first, then add the currants and raspberries, with a pint and a half of red currant juice to every three pounds of fruit. Boil until the fruit is broken, then add one pound of sugar to every pint of fruit, and boil gently for half an hour. Skim carefully, pour the jam into jars, and cover in the usual way. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A three-fruit preserve that leans on redcurrant juice for its set rather than added pectin. The measurements are imperial and the method assumes a cook who judges by eye, so a thermometer and a set test are worth having to hand.
- Imperial pintsA pint here is 20 fl oz, not the American 16. The pint and a half of redcurrant juice per 3 lb of fruit is therefore about 850 ml.
- Equal measures, not weightsEqual measures -- The recipe asks for 'equal measures' of the three fruits but then gives the juice ratio against three pounds of fruit, so it is not certain whether volume or weight is meant. Using the same jug or bowl for each fruit is one reasonable reading.
- The redcurrant juice is the pectinThe redcurrant juice helps the set -- Cherries and raspberries are low in pectin, and the redcurrant juice supplies both acid and pectin. The black currants in the mixture are also pectin-rich, so they contribute too, but omitting the juice or substituting water will give a much looser result.
- Sugar by pint of fruitThe 1 lb of sugar per pint is measured against the cooked, broken-down fruit and juice, not the raw fruit. Measure the pulp after the first boil.
- Test for set rather than timingHalf an hour of gentle boiling is a guide only, and depends on your pan's surface area. Work to 220F/105C on a sugar thermometer, or use the cold-saucer wrinkle test; overshooting turns a cherry jam sticky and dark.
- Stoning the cherriesThe cherries go in twenty minutes ahead of the other fruit, most likely because they need the longest cooking to soften; the recipe does not say why.
- SkimmingSkim the scum as it rises rather than at the end, when it has begun to set into the surface. A very small knob of butter stirred in at the end disperses what remains.
- "Cover in the usual way"In the period this meant a waxed or brandy-soaked paper laid on the hot surface and a paper or parchment cover tied over the top. For keeping today, pot into hot sterilised jars, seal at once with two-piece lids, and give a 10-minute boiling-water bath; store opened jars in the fridge.
- YieldRoughly 3 lb of mixed fruit with its juice and sugar gives about five to six 1 lb jars. The "probable cost, 10d. per pound" is a period price and of no practical use now.
This is a compound preserve: three fruits and a fourth in the form of juice, where a household jam would more often be a single fruit and sugar. Mixed jams of this kind made practical sense in a late-Victorian kitchen garden, where cherries, currants and raspberries all came in within a few weeks of one another and none in quantity enough for a season's worth of pots on its own. The redcurrant juice does the work that commercial pectin, sold from the early twentieth century onward, later took over; before that, cooks reached for currants, apples or gooseberries whenever the main fruit would not set. Costing by the pound was standard in Cassell's, which was written for mistresses and cooks who had to answer for the housekeeping book.