How To Make Summer Fruits and Berries Jam

Homemade Jam Recipes

Ingredients: Summer Fruits and Berries Jam Recipe

2 lb / 1,000 grams of mixed summer fruits
2 lb / 1,000 grams of white granulated sugar
1 lemon

Method - What To Do

This jam recipe can be made with a mixture of any seasonal summer fruits, such as blackberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, elderberries, gooseberries, raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries and whitecurrants. You can vary the ratios depending upon what fruit is available at the time, or your personal preference. If you would like to make this jam out of season, most supermarkets sell a good mixture of frozen summer fruits that would be more than adequate when cooked in this recipe.

Trim any leaves from your strawberries and place all of the fruit into a large saucepan, layering it with the sugar. If possible, try not to wash the fruit, so that you do not add extra moisture to the recipe. If washing the fruit cannot be avoided, then do make sure that it is patted dry before placing into the saucepan with the sugar.

Leave the summer fruits and sugar for a few hours or overnight, so that the juices soak into the sugar and the fruit hardens up. This will help to prevent it disintegrating when cooked and is necessary if you prefer a fruit preserve with chunks, rather than a smooth spread. It also means that the fruit won't need to be cooked as long, as some of the sugar will have started dissolving already.

Squeeze over the juice of the lemon, collecting the pips. Place the pips into a piece of muslin or similar and add to the mixture, so that they can provide extra natural pectin and help the jam set better. Add the saucepan to a low heat and gently cook until all of the sugar has dissolved. Rather than stirring the mixture, agitate the pan with a shaking action, so that the fruit remains whole. As soon as all of the sugar has been absorbed by the juices, increase the heat so that the summer fruit jam begins to boil, reducing to a simmer for around five minutes.

Test the jam mix to see if it is ready to set by using the cold plate method, whereby a small amount of the mixture is placed on a plate from a freezer. If it quickly takes on a jelly like appearance, then you can be confident that it is ready to cool. If not, continue to simmer and test again in just a few minutes.

Before adding the summer fruit mixture to the glass jam jars (sterilised just before), remove the muslin bag containing the lemon pips. Scrape off any scum that has formed during the cooking and leave it to cool for approximately ten minutes. This will prevent all of the remaining fruit pieces from rising to the top or sinking to the bottom of the hot jam in the jar, as they will be suspended better as it cools down.

Summer Fruits and Berries Jam Recipe - More Jam Recipes.