Preserve the flavour of sweet summer and autumn fruit with our best ever jam and jelly recipes. Make the most of homegrown produce, forage in the hedgerows, or buy what’s good value because there’s a glut. Or, if you live near a suitable farm then there’s the option to PYO. Read on for Lulu’s top tips for making jams, jellies and preserves.
Meet Lulu
Lulu Grimes is Good Food’s head of brand trust and previously served as our managing editor. She makes jam every year from her loganberries which she grows in a pot in her very small back garden and from foraged blackberries which grow in abundance in her area of London.
What makes a jam a jam and a jelly a jelly?
There are distinctions between jams, jellies and preserves. Jams tend to be made with about 60% sugar; you need this much because sugar make the jam set and ensures that the jam has a long enough shelf life.
- Jam has fruit cooked into it, the fruit is often cooked so the pieces are no longer distinct, preserves are similar.
- Jellies are made with fruit juice, the fruit pulp is strained out so that they are clear.
- Preserves are not distinct from jam in any particular way, they can be softer, have chunkier fruit, contain less sugar or just be a label to make you think something is ‘artisan’. The overarching word can also cover savoury pickles and chutneys.
Commercial products
If you read the labels on commercially produced jams (and jellies and preserves) then you’ll see that it’s mandatory to list the weight of both sugar and fruit per 100g. Conserves, preserves and fruit spreads are not subject to the same regulation so jams made with less sugar or less fruit are labelled with these terms.
Ingredients
Sugar
You can use cane or beet sugar for making jam. The coarser the sugar you use, the less scum it will make. Granulated sugar is a pure sugar, jam or preserving sugar which is even coarser usually has added pectin to help jam set.
Fruit
You need to know roughly how much pectin the fruit you are using contains so you can add more if necessary. Underripe fruit contains more pectin than ripe fruit. Fruit also needs enough acidity to help it set, if fruit is not high in acid because it is too ripe, then lemon juice is usually added. High pectin fruits include apples, grapes and citrus. Fruit with varying levels of pectin that makes good jam include: strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, blueberries, currants (black and red), raspberries, blackberries, loganberries, plums, greengages and damsons.
Pectin
Hopefully the fruit you use will have enough, when you make jelly you use all of the fruit, skin and pips and cores included, this helps with the pectin content. Berries often need lemon juice added as they are lower in pectin. When making jam you prepare the fruit before cooking it because you won’t be sieving it, so some pectin rich parts of the fruit won’t be used, unlike for jelly. You can buy liquid pectin and jam sugar that includes pectin, this will help jam set if you are worried that it won’t.
Equipment
If you’re looking to invest in some jam equipment, we’ve selected our favourite preserving tools. That being said, you don’t need anything special to get started, though you will need jars with lids that screw on tightly or preserving jars. It’s important that the jars you use are airtight or your jam may go off or get mouldy.
A basic method for making jam
- Roughly chop any fruit that needs it, remove any stones, stems and bruised bits and peel if necessary.
- If you are using berries, then macerating them in some of the sugar helps draw out their juices before you start.
- Warm the sugar in the oven if you like, this helps speed up the time it takes to dissolve.
- Use a large, heavy-based and wide pan to help cook the jam quickly. A straight-sided tall pan will stop the water evaporating as fast.
- Put fruit in a large pan with the water specified in the recipe. This varies a lot, for example berries like blackcurrants need more than soft berries like raspberries and both need less than a fruit that doesn’t give off as much juice.
- Simmer until the fruit is completely soft. You need to cook the fruit before adding the sugar or the sugar may toughen any skins/peel.
- Add the sugar, as well as any lemon juice or ingredients that help pectin develop.
- Heat gently first to dissolve the sugar completely before it boils
- Bring to a rolling boil and boil hard until setting point is reached (usually 10-20 minutes). You can tell when jam is reaching setting point as the fast, frothy rolling boil will reduce to a slower, more relaxed boil. The tiny air bubbles disappear, the surface looks glossy and the mixture will feel thicker. Undercook rather than overcook – runny jam can be cooked up again.
- To get rid of scum (which is just trapped air) at the end of cooking, stir in the same direction until reduced. Skim off any excess once off the heat
Wondering what else you can do with homemade jam? Try making our homemade jammy dodger biscuits, seasonal plum jam doughnuts or use them in our classic scones with clotted cream.
Testing for a set
Wrinkle test: chill a saucer in the freezer beforehand, drop a little jam on it, push with a finger after waiting for 30 seconds – it should wrinkle. Or use a jam/sugar thermometer: the setting point is 105/6C
Jarring and storing
- Have sterilised jars ready and warm before you start cooking. Sterilise them in the hot cycle of a dishwasher or by washing in hot soapy water and drying them in an oven set to 100C/80C fan/gas ¼. Keep the jars warm until you use them.
- Ladle the jam into the jars while still hot, right up to the top.
- Cover with a waxed disc (if using) while hot, then seal with a lid once cool.
- Label the jars with the type of fruit and the date you have made it.
Read more tips from our experts on how to sterilise jars for jams and preserves.
A basic method for making jelly
- Chop the fruit but don’t remove any cores, pips and peel.
- Follow the recipe above to cook the fruit. We have recipes for grape jelly, blackberry jelly, crab apple jelly, quince jelly, among others.
- Scald a jelly bag with boiling water or line a large sieve/colander with scalded muslin, then set it over a large bowl that will hold all of the juice.
- Pour in the fruit and let it drip – don’t push or squeeze the pulp through, or the jelly will turn cloudy. To speed up the flow of the straining juice, put a small saucer and heavyish weight (for example, a water-filled jam jar) on top of the fruit pulp.
- You can hang the bag above the bowl if you like, this helps it drip faster. Leave for several hours, ideally overnight, somewhere cool where it won’t attract insects.
- Measure the strained juice, add sugar (450g sugar per 600ml of juice), plus a squeeze of lemon juice if using a lower-pectin fruit.
- Heat gently first to dissolve the sugar completely before it boils.
- Bring to a rolling boil and boil hard until setting point is reached (usually 10-20 minutes). You can tell when jam is reaching setting point as the fast, frothy rolling boil will reduce to a slower, more relaxed boil. The tiny air bubbles disappear, the surface looks glossy and the mixture will feel thicker. Undercook rather than overcook – runny jelly can be cooked up again.
- To get rid of scum (which is just trapped air) at the end of cooking, stir in the same direction until reduced. Skim off any excess once off the heat.
Testing for a set
Wrinkle test: chill a saucer in the freezer beforehand, drop a little jelly on it, push with a finger after waiting for 30 seconds – it should wrinkle. Or use a sugar thermometer: setting point is 105C
Jarring and storing
- Have sterilised jars ready and warm before you start cooking. Sterilise them in the hot cycle of a dishwasher or by washing in hot soapy water and drying them in an oven set to 100C/80C fan/gas ¼. Keep the jars warm until you use them.
- Ladle the jam into the jars while still hot, right up to the top.
- Cover with a waxed disc (if using) while hot, then seal with a lid once cool
- Label the jars with the type of fruit and the date you have made it.