Here is a recipe for a lovely seasonal recipe of Strawberry & Gooseberry Jam. Perfect for using up a glut of home grown fruit, or from your local PYO farm (we are very lucky to have Grove Farm near us in Ivinghoe), or even from the supermarket. It doesn’t matter where you get the ingredients from really, as long as they are seasonal and fresh. The addition of gooseberries to this jam make for a slightly less sweet flavour and help the set as they have more pectin in them than strawberries alone. I have used and adapted an old WI recipe, and you can too depending on what you have available. Just remember equal amounts of sugar to fruit. Have fun!
Strawberry & Gooseberry Jam
Makes about 2.5 kg (5 lb)
750 g (1.5 lb) gooseberries
150 ml (1/4 pint water)
750 g (1.5 lb) strawberries (hulled)
1.5 kg (3 lb) sugar
Place the gooseberries and hulled strawberries in a perserving pan with water and cook gently until the fruit is soft and mushy. Remove from the heat.
Add the sugar and stir well until all dissolved (if not all dissolved the jam will crystalise in the jar later). Return to the heat, bring to the boil and boil rapidly for about 15 mins until setting point is reached*. Pour into warmed, sterilised jam jars, cover and label.
*To test for setting point I use the saucer method – just put some saucers into the fridge when you start cooking the jam, then when ready to test take the jam off the heat and spoon a teaspoon of jam onto the cold saucer. Put it back in the fridge for 60 seconds, take out and if the jam wrinkles when pushed with your finger, the setting point has been reached.
Strawberries and Gooseberries in the Preserving Pan
The fruit softening in the pan
Putting the jam into warmed jars
The finished article - Yummy!
[...] them with luscious double cream for dessert, Rachel has made the main harvest into jam today (see strawberry and gooseberry jam recipe here). They are still cropping too so we’re expecting more yet. Oh and we’ve had our [...]
So happy I found your great blog with its wonderful detail. We are organic farmers in Illinois just now putting our too busy farm business up for sale so we can be debt free and self sufficient . Can’t wait to spend more time on your blog !
Happy you have found us too Donna! Thanks for the lovely comments and good luck with your Self Sufficiency dream – keep us posted! x
Glad I found your blog thanks for the great recipe for the jam.
No problem – have you made it yet? It’s scrummy!
My nan recommends using brown sugar instead as she says this helps reduce the acid in the berries and helps people who suffer from heartburn – I do not whether it works or not but it might be worth a try.
Great! Thanks for the tip Chris!