The Runny Jam Traumas

One of the delights of visiting the grandparents used to be their raspberry canes. August. Huge fat juicy rasps ripened to perfection in the Highland hills, lots of rain. Fighting midgies to pick enough for pudding with ice cream - 15 minutes - before you could stand it no longer. One of the better chores was the jam making. Big vats of syrupy sticky greatness. And the clinking jars in the back of the car on the way back to the big smoke. Over the rest of the year, on special occasions being able to bring a jar up from the cellar, dust it off and open it. The taste. Divine.

So my sister lives in Dundee where the pick-your-own farms are plentiful and we just happened to be passing back through there at exactly the right time... So we picked. There was a mild dispute about the number of baskets we were allowed - I wanted 5, bossy britches only let us have 4. So we came back with perhaps 16lbs of raspberries. (Oh and 8lbs of strawberries that were ready picked but delicious which I snuck in while she wasn't looking!). I think her greatest fear was the making up - her pan wasn't as large as the one Mum used. We did two batches at her house (and it turns out bossy britches was right - 4 were plenty). And I did all the rest when I got home.



The strawberry jam was a recipe from my Grandad which went like this:

Yield: 6.5lbs jam
4lbs strawberries
4lbs sugar
(following sisters advice I reduced the amount of sugar by a quarter)

Hull, wash and drain the strawberries. Layer strawberries and sugar in a large pan and cover with a cloth. Leave in a cool place for 24 hours.

Bring the mixture to the boil, boil for 5 minutes. Leave the mixture (covered) for a further 48 hours.

Finally bring back to the boil and boil for 20 minutes or until setting point. Pour into clean, dry jars.

The great thing about this recipe is that some strawberries remain whole in the jam, like expensive french conserve.


Mammouth jam making sessions all round. 24 jars of raspberry and 10 jars of strawberry. But although they taste fabulous, its a touch runny (this'll be due to the sugar not having pectin I reckon because we boiled them for longer than it said but we failed to add juice of lemon or pips of lemon).

This never happened to mother. But then its hard to live up to her exacting standards, I'm sure the meringue never slid off her lemon meringue pie either. Although I do know she blew up the coffee pot once - the grounds hit the ceiling...in a Georgian house.