Hands-Free Raspberry Jam

This is the best jam to start with as it doesn't need any testing or temperature-taking or indeed anything much: you just put the fruit and sugar, separately, into the oven and then, on mixing together, you've made your jam. As you'd expect, it is intensely fresh-tasting, and indeed will spoil if you don't keep it in the refrigerator. It's the best jam to use, with sweet fresh cream, to sandwich a vanilla-scented, tender-crumbed Victoria sponge.

This is another recipe that comes from the movingly hand-scrawled book that belonged to Hettie's mother, Soot.

Ingredients

• 1 cup or 1/2 pint raspberries

• 1 cup sugar

• 8-ounce jar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

2. Put the raspberries and sugar into two separate bowls; I use pie plates, so the fruit will be spread out rather than piled up. Put the bowls into the oven for 20-25 minutes until they are really hot. Take them out of the oven carefully, and add the sugar to the raspberries. As you do so you'll find the fruit turns into a molten, ruby-red river. Pour this into the cleaned and waiting jar. Fasten it, and leave to cool before storing in the refrigerator.