Season: July to late October. This recipe comes from Liz Neville, a virtuoso preserves maker with whom I run the River Cottage Preserved courses. You can make it with any raspberry, but we particularly like to use the big autumn berries. Bottle a few and you can extend your raspberry eating well into the dark winter months. In an ideal world, the fruit for this preserve would be packed into the jars as you pick it from the canes. That may not be possible–but do make sure the fruit is in tip-top condition and handled as little as possible.
Recipe information
Yield
makes three 16-ounce jars
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
First make a syrup: put the sugar and 3 1/4 cups of water into a pan and heat slowly to dissolve the sugar, then bring to a boil. Keep the syrup warm.
Step 2
Pack the raspberries tightly into warm, sterilized jars (see p. 152). Make sure you don’t bruise the fruit–a chopstick or wooden spoon handle is useful for gently prodding it down. Pour the alcohol over the packed fruit. Fill the jars to the brim with the sugar syrup, tapping them to remove any air bubbles. Put the lids on the jars, loosening screw-bands by a quarter of a turn, if you’re using them, to allow the steam to escape (see p. 156).
Step 3
Stand the jars in a deep pan and cover with warm water (100°F). Heat to the simmering point (190°F) over 25 minutes. Maintain this temperature for 2 minutes.
Step 4
Carefully remove the jars and stand them on a wooden surface or thick folded towel. Tighten the screw-bands, then leave the jars undisturbed to cool. When cool, check the seal by removing the clips or screw-bands and lifting the jars by the lid (see p. 158). Use within 1 year.
