Currant Jam, Black
INGREDIENTS.-To every lb. of fruit, weighed before being stripped from the stalks, allow lb. of loaf sugar, 1 gill of water. AVERAGE COST, 6d. per pot.
CURRANT JELLY.
Let the fruit be very ripe, and gathered on a dry day. Strip it from the stalks, and put it into a preserving-pan, with a gill of water to each lb. of fruit; boil these together for 10 minutes; then add the sugar, and boil the jam again for 30 minutes, reckoning from the time when the jam simmers equally all over, or longer, should it not appear to set nicely when a little is poured on to a plate. Keep stirring it to prevent it from burning, carefully remove all the scum, and when done, pour it into pots. Let it cool, cover the top of the jam with oiled paper, and the top of the jars with a piece of tissue paper, brushed over on both sides with the white of an egg; this, when cold, forms a hard stiff cover, and perfectly excludes the air. Great attention must be paid to the stirring of this jam, as it is very liable to burn, on account of the thickness of the juice, TIME.-10 minutes to boil the fruit and water; 30 minutes with the sugar, or longer.
SEASONABLE. - Make this in July.
A straightforward long-boil blackcurrant jam. Blackcurrants are high in both pectin and acid, so this sets readily; the real risk is scorching, which the original rightly stresses.
- Sugar quantityThe proportion of loaf sugar has lost its fraction in this text and cannot be read with confidence. Comparable recipes of the period commonly call for somewhere between three-quarters of a pound and a full pound of sugar per pound of fruit; use a current tested proportion rather than guessing from the line as printed.
- A gillA gill is 5 fl oz, or a generous half cup. Blackcurrant skins are tough and need that water to soften before sugar goes in.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined sugar sold in a hard cone and broken or crushed for use. Ordinary granulated sugar is the direct replacement; preserving sugar dissolves faster and throws less scum.
- Preserving-panA wide, heavy, unlined copper or brass pan. Any wide heavy-based stainless pan works. Width matters more than depth, since evaporation is what concentrates the jam.
- Why it burnsThe pulp thickens well before the setting point, so the base scorches easily. Stir with a flat-ended wooden spatula that reaches the corners of the pan, and keep the heat at a steady rolling boil rather than fierce.
- Testing the setThe 30 minutes is a guide only, timed from when the whole surface boils evenly. Trust the plate test given in the recipe: a spoonful on a chilled plate should wrinkle when pushed. Blackcurrant usually reaches this in 10 to 15 minutes of hard boiling.
- Covering the potsThe oiled paper and egg-white tissue seal is obsolete. Pot into sterilised jars and seal while the jam is above 85C, or use screw-top lids and store cool; a paper cover will not keep mould out over months.
- Yield and seasonA pound of fruit with its sugar gives roughly 1 1/2 lb of jam, about one and a half standard jars. July is the English blackcurrant season; frozen currants work and need no thawing, though allow a little longer for the first boil.
Blackcurrants earned their place in the Victorian storecupboard as much for medicine as for pleasure: blackcurrant jam thinned with hot water was a common domestic remedy for sore throats and colds long before anyone measured its vitamin C. The fruit is sharp and thick-skinned, and much of the crop went into jam, jelly and cordial rather than being eaten raw. Mrs Beeton's household books treat preserving as an annual duty timed to the fruit, and the elaborate egg-white-and-tissue cover here is a reminder of the era before reliable airtight lids, when the housewife's own sealing skill decided whether the year's work survived until spring.