We planted both raspberries and strawberries over the last few years and are getting so many we can’t eat them all. We give them away, but is there something better we can do with them?
Edit: thanks for all the great responses. I think we’re going to freeze them.
Raspberry jam is insanely easy to make. Equal weights of fruit and sugar, heat slowly to dissolve the sugar, then boil rapidly for five minutes. Bung in jars and screw the lids on while still hot.
The only sterile part is the jars - I put them in a lowish oven for ten minutes or so after washing them. Lids are washed, dried and swabbed with vinegar.
The sterilization part is what I was concerned about. People who make jam the first time don’t necessarily know how critical that is. You really cannot take shortcuts and be like, “I just washed it. It’s fine.”
I’m still eating blackcurrant jam I made in 2013. I use jars whose lids have the pop-up seals. Pour hot jam into hot jars, screw on the lid and the little thingie in the middle should pop down as it cools, showing it’s sealed. When you open the jar it pops up again, to show the seal is broken. Just about all my jars come from a particular brand of pitted kalamata olives I’m partial to. Perfect size for jam.
When I was a child mum sealed the jars of jam with a disc of cellophane that had been dampened in vinegar, fastened with a rubber band. Pretty good seal actually, it tightened as the jam cooled. But if the jam went mouldy we’d just scrape the mould off - no big deal.