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I was kindly given part of a large crop of gooseberries by my friends Kit and Ellie, their two bushes have been prolific this year. Earlier in the summer, I used some of their underripe berries to make a sauce to accompany mackerel, but now they were large and quite sweet.
I made the lion’s share of them into gooseberry jam andthought I would give you a recipe, as it is so easy to make, and you areunlikely to find it in the shops. If you don’t know of any gooseberry bushes,try a greengrocer – I have spotted them in quite a few shops this year.
The great thing about gooseberry jam is that thegooseberries change in colour, adopting an appetising warm pinkish hue with theintense heat of jam-making. This change is apparently due to the anthocyaninsin the gooseberries interacting with metal ions leached from the cooking vesselitself.
Gooseberries are not as juicy as their red, white and blackcurrant relatives so they need a bit of extra added water to help dissolve the sugar. Gooseberries are high in pectin, especially when young, so there should be enough to set the jam. However, if they are late season and ripe, you might want to replace a small proportion of the sugar with jam sugar, which contains pectin, to give them a helping hand.
The jam I made is simple: gooseberries, sugar and water, butif you have any of the extras in the ingredients list below, feel free to addthem if you like.
The jam makes a great roly-poly or Victoria sponge filling.
The quantities below makes around 1 litre of jam, and it iseasy to scale up or down depending upon the amount of gooseberries you have tohand.
1 kg gooseberries, washed, topped and tailed
1 kg granulated sugar (or 800 g granulated and 200 g jamsugar, if the gooseberries are ripe
500 ml water
Optional extras: A dozen elderflower heads wrapped inmuslin, a good bunch of sweet cicely tied with twine or replace 250 ml of thewater with Muscat wine.
Before you start, place a saucer in the freezer.
Place all the ingredients in a large, heavy based saucepan on a medium heat.
Stir occasionally and when all of the sugar has dissolved, turn the heat up to bring the gooseberries to a really good boil. After around 15 minutes – by now they should have a pinkish tinge about them – test to see if you have got a set. Either take the jam’s temperature with a temperature probe and see if it is 105°C, or take a teaspoon of the mixture and place a few drops on your very cold saucer you had stored in the fridge, let it cool for a minute and see if the drops wrinkle when you push them with a finger.
You can use a candy thermometer instead of a probe, but Ifind them imprecise. However, if you have a trusty one, by all means slot itdown the inside of jam before you start to boil it.
Leave the jam to cool for 15 minutes and skim any scum witha large spoon or ladle.
Have some sterilised jars ready and ladle in the jam. A jamfunnel is helpful here. Alternatively, pour the jam into a Pyrex or stainless-steeljug rinsed out with scalding water and carefully fill your jars. Seal whenstill very hot.
I have written at length about setting points and sterilisation, so if you are unsure, have a look at this post here for a walk-through.
