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Raspberry and Currant Jam
1 pound red raspberries 1/4 cup currant-juice 3/4 pound sugar Mash the fruit, add the currant-juice, and bring to the boiling-point, stirring well from the bottom. Add the sugar and cook until thick, stirring occasionally. Pack in clean hot jars and seal.
A small-batch jam that leans on currant juice rather than added pectin. The proportions are exact enough to follow directly; only the sealing method needs bringing up to date.
- Weights to volumesOne pound of red raspberries is roughly 3 1/2 cups whole berries; 3/4 pound of sugar is about 1 2/3 cups. A kitchen scale gives a more reliable set than cups, since berries pack unevenly.
- Why the currant-juiceCurrants are high in both pectin and acid, so the quarter cup does the work of commercial pectin and keeps the jam from being flat-tasting. Raspberries alone are only moderately pectin-rich and would give a looser set.
- The low sugar ratioThree parts sugar to four parts fruit is on the low side; many jam recipes, then and now, use closer to equal weights of sugar and fruit. Expect a soft, fruit-forward set and a shorter shelf life once opened.
- "Cook until thick"Cook to 220F on a candy thermometer, or until a spoonful dropped on a chilled plate wrinkles when pushed. At this small volume that is usually 10 to 15 minutes of hard boiling, not longer.
- Pan and stirringUse a wide, heavy pan; a small batch in a narrow pot scorches at the bottom before the surface reduces. Skim the pink foam before jarring or it will sit as a cloudy layer on top.
- Sealing"Pack in clean hot jars and seal" is open-kettle canning, which relies on the hot jam alone to sterilize. Current practice is to fill sterilized half-pint jars to 1/4 inch headspace and process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes; otherwise refrigerate and use within a few weeks.
- YieldAbout two half-pint jars.
Pairing raspberries with currant juice is a long-standing trick in English and American preserving: red currants ripen at much the same moment as summer raspberries, and their juice supplies the acid and pectin that raspberries lack, so the two were often put up together long before pectin was sold in boxes. The pair is frequently listed as "raspberry and currant" rather than as a compromise, since the currant sharpens what can otherwise be a cloying jam. Recipes like this one reflect how much preserving was still done at home from garden fruit or a farmer's crate, in batches small enough to finish in a single afternoon.