Raspberry Jam

Fresh fruit is plentiful at the farmers markets these days. Strawberry season is pretty much over, but raspberry season is upon us and the blueberries and blackberries have just started to roll in. We've been buying half a flat a week. Tonight we had a beautiful dessert of all three types of berries with creme fraiche. 

A few weeks ago, we bought half a flat of organic raspberries. Unfortunately, we got busy, the fridge was full, and we dumped the raspberries into a tupperware and promptly forgot about them. The horror!

Today, as I was cleaning out the fridge, I found the tupperware. I was scared to open it. I figured the raspberries would have disintegrated into a moldy, fermented mess. Well, I was wrong. The raspberries were still beautiful. They were softer than they'd been when we bought them - in fact they practically fell apart when I picked them up. But the taste was super sweet and I couldn't see just throwing them away.

So I decided to make jam. The recipe was exceedingly simple. Smash about 4 cups of berries in a pot. Bring them to a boil, add the same amount of sugar, boil for another 6-8 minutes, cool, and put into jars. Now I used a little over 5 cups of berries and a little less than 3 cups of sugar. These berries were so sweet, they didn't need very much sugar.

Of course I had to taste the jam. It was incredible. I very nearly had that alone for dinner. We'll put a jar in the gift baskets we're making for our parents.