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Raspberry Jam
As raspberries very soon turn mouldy after they are gathered, it is most important that fresh fruit should be used. Pick the raspberries, put them into a preserving-pan, and bruise them with the back of a wooden spoon. Put them on the fire, and let them boil for half an hour from the time when they boil equally all over. Stir in half their weight of roughly-powdered sugar, and when this is melted boil the jam till it will set. Skim carefully after the sugar is added, or it will not be clear. Pour it while hot into small jars. When cold, lay writing-paper dipped in brandy on the top, and cover the jars with tissue-paper brushed over on both sides with white of egg, or with strong gum water. Store in a dry, airy place. Probable cost, 6d. to 9d. per pound.
A very old-fashioned method: the fruit is cooked down hard before the sugar goes in, which is what gives this jam its deep colour and thick set despite the low sugar proportion. A few of the keeping instructions have been overtaken by better equipment.
- The hinge: boil the fruit first, aloneThe half-hour of boiling before any sugar is added drives off water and breaks the fruit down. Adding the sugar at the start, as many modern recipes do, will not give the same result from this method — follow the order as written.
- Half their weight of sugarWeigh the picked fruit before cooking: 2 lb raspberries takes 1 lb sugar. This is roughly half the sugar of a modern preserve, so the jam tastes markedly sharper and will not keep as long. "Roughly-powdered" simply means broken up so it dissolves quickly; ordinary granulated sugar is fine.
- Preserving-panTypically a wide, shallow pan, often copper or brass. Any wide heavy-based stainless pan works; width matters more than depth because evaporation is the whole point. Avoid uncoated aluminium or iron with acidic fruit.
- "Boil till it will set"Setting point is 220F (104C) on a sugar thermometer, or the cold-saucer test: a spoonful chilled on a plate should wrinkle when pushed. At this sugar level expect a soft set rather than a firm one.
- SkimmingSkim after the sugar dissolves, as directed, or the jam stays cloudy. A very small knob of butter stirred in at the end will disperse most of the remaining scum.
- Brandy paper and tissue coversThe spirit-soaked disc and egg-white-glued tissue were the Victorian answer to mould on a jar that could not be sealed airtight. They are not a seal. Use sterilised jars with two-piece lids or proper preserving jars, and treat the jam as refrigerator jam once opened.
- KeepingBecause of the reduced sugar, jam covered the old way in a cool larder is more liable to surface mould than a modern full-sugar preserve. Water-bath processing, or simply keeping the jars in the refrigerator or freezer, is the sensible modern equivalent.
- Yield and cost2 lb raspberries with 1 lb sugar gives roughly 2 lb of finished jam, about three half-pint jars. The "6d. to 9d. per pound" is the book's own estimate of what the jam cost to produce, not a shop price.
Cassell's opens with a warning about mould because raspberries were, and are, one of the most perishable soft fruits — before refrigerated transport they were essentially a garden or market-garden crop that had to be dealt with the day it was picked, which is why jam-making is often said to have been a regular summer duty in households with canes. The technique here, boiling the fruit down before sugaring, belongs to an older English preserving tradition in which sugar was expensive enough to be used sparingly and the cook relied on long reduction and the fruit's own pectin for a set; currants set readily, which is why they dominate nineteenth-century jam chapters while low-pectin fruits like strawberry give trouble. The brandy-dipped paper and egg-white-glued tissue cover were standard before screw-band jars became cheap, the spirit acting on the surface where mould spores land and the tissue drying to a tight drum-skin over the mouth of the jar.