265: Raspberry & Plum Jam

After my hard-disc induced hiatus, I'm long overdue a new proper posting. Instead you'll get something much more typical of me; something a little half-arsed. Throughout the late summer and all of autumn my raspberry canes have continued to produce raspberries in much that same half-arsed manner that I blog.

A couple of times there were enough raspberries to have with ice-cream. But most of the time there wasn't really enough to do anything with - so I froze them. Evenutally ending up with about a kilo. I'd enjoyed making strawberry jam last year and always had in mind to make jam. I had both jam and preserving sugars. The top google recipes all had normal jam. Which I found a bit weird. Possessing presrving sugar, I was not going to be deterred from using it.

So, I just made it up.

• Nearly a kilo of raspberries
• With nearly a kilo of preserving sugar

This I heated until the sugar all dissolved and I simmered it for 5 minutes. This being raspberries there wasn't really any semblance of fruit left by this stage. What I'd planned to do here was the thing where you see if the jam wrinkles when a dab is placed and smudged on a cold plate. However.... it was about now that Mrs VegBox rang and reminded me we had some stewed plums (bought from Tesco's and had overnight gone from uniped hard to too squidgy overnight). So, a quick weigh (~300gs) and in they went, followed by the same of preserinvg sugar.

Bringing this to a simmer again, getting back to where I'd been 15 minutes earlier. There was a hint of wrinkle so in to the jars.

Here it is. The plum bits floated to the top a little. But don't the lumps always float to the top?

And below on toast, just in case anyone is unsure what to do with jam and bread. Before last year's first attempt at jam, I'd always considered it very much something out of the advanced class and assumed major machinery would be required. I wouldn't claim this would win prizes down the WI - by the time I'd got past half-way down the jar it hadn't set very well at all. But it tasted super fresh, the plum lumps were an enjoyable bonus. Seems to me, you can't go wrong. Every egg a bird!