Wild Raspberry Jam (no added sugar)

We have a walk we take with the dog where we had spotted a patch of raspberry canes - it's alongside the bridleway.  We noticed a few fruits were ripe and ready to harvest so when we returned at the weekend, it was great to see how many more had been ripened in just seven days.  Only spending a few minutes gathering fruit, we were surprised to find, once back home, that we had 350g red raspberries and eight yellow raspberries (much to Sous Chef J's delight).

As wild raspberries are small and very flavoursome, we decided to try to make jam with no added sugar. With no idea as to how it would turn out but thought it worth a go and would, we hoped, make a suitable filling for one of our favourite roulades.

After washing the raspberries, they were put in a pan and a small amount of freshly squeezed orange juice was added.  The pan was placed over a medium heat and brought to a rolling boil.  The raspberries were boiled until pulling back with a spoon revealed only a small amount of fluid.

Whilst the raspberries were boiling, we sterilised our jam jar (by placing it and its lid in the washing up bowl and filling with boiling water).  This was then quickly drained, making sure not to touch the inside of the jar or lid.

The jam was then decanted into the jam jar and left to cool.  It was good to hear the 'click' of the lid as the cooling contents created a vacuum seal in the jar.

We had read online that wild raspberries contain alot of pectin so we didn't add any sugar or pectin.  As you can see, in the pic to the right, after setting, there was no doubt this was not a runny jam!

Trying the jam on some Genius Gluten Free seeded bread that had been toasted, it was a tasty preserve that was very much like a thick paste/spread rather than a traditional jam with jelly.  Surprisingly, even though there were lots of seeds in the jam, as the fruit was wild, they were very small and not at all unpleasant.

Not bad for an almost free fruit spread!

Lemon and Lime Curd

We spotted some nets of lemons and limes that were reduced when we were at the supermarket during the week... and, being of a thrifty persuasion, decided to buy them to have a go at making curd.

Looking for a suitable recipe, we were confronted with all sorts of 'fussy' ones that, frankly, we just don't have the time or inclination for.  So we adapted an old recipe from a card in my recipe stash and were able to make use of the 4 eggs we had as well.

The ingredients we used were - 

3 lemons, zested (and juice of 2)

3 limes, zested and juiced
4 medium eggs, lightly beaten

135g unsalted butter, cubed

165g granulated sugar

We zested and juiced all the limes - zested all the lemons but only used the juice of two of them.






All the ingredients were placed in a heatproof bowl over a pan of just-simmering water... take care NOT to let the water touch the bowl or the egg will scramble.  Stir.


We made sure to keep the water in the pan at a low heat and stirred the ingredients until first the butter melted and then the sugar dissolved.  Keep stirring....

Finally, the curd mix was thick enough to cover the back of our wooden spoon.










The curd was poured (messily) into sterilised jars... we had done this by pouring boiling water, right up to the brim, and leaving them whilst the curd was cooking.









From the ingredients we used, we made about 700ml of curd.

Sous Chef J was on hand to assist with post-jar-filling 'tidying up'... and a fine job he did of it too!

The recipe we adapted says the curd will keep in the fridge for up to a month but, somehow, don't think ours will last that long...