Loganberry Jam Recipe for Preserving Fruits
Harvesting Ripe Fruits for Set Jam Method Preserving Loganberries
Mar 21, 2009
Loganberries, from a hybrid berry plant, can be harvested for its fruits throughout the berry season. Fruit gardeners with abundant supplies of loganberries can pick the just ripe fruits and opt for preserving loganberries as a jam. Loganberry jam sets well and is a straightforward way to preserve loganberries.
Picking Loganberries When Just Ripe
Loganberries preserved when slightly over-ripe will produce a loose jam unless apple juice or lemon juice plus pectin is added during the preserving process. Ideally loganberry jam uses three ingredients only:
- water
- loganberries picked when just ripe and
- equal measure of granulated or preserving sugar
Preparing and Preserving Loganberries
Picked loganberries should prepared in the same way as raspberries and blackberries. Picking the fruits when just ripe will reduce damage to the berries and are the ideal fruit quality for making a well-set loganberry jam. Rubus hybrid, loganberries will ripen slightly later in the fruiting season compared to raspberries and blackberries. Freshly picked loganberries will be sour when eaten raw.
Pests are very likely to be present in the loganberry fruits so thorough washing before preserving is essential. In Economical Cookery (Morrison & Gibb, 1930) instructions for preparing loganberries for preserving are "The grubs can be got rid of by letting the fruit stand for about 1/4 hour in a weak salt solution, when the grubs will come out and rise to the top of the water, when they can be removed. The fruit must then be put in a colander and cold water poured over it to remove all trace of the salt".
Loganberry Jam Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1kg loganberries, pest-free and washed
- 1kg granulated or preserving sugar
Directions:
- Put the loganberries into the saucepan and add water until all the berry fruit is covered.
- Cover the pan and simmer the loganberries and water to reduce the liquid to one third of volume.
- Ensure that the loganberries are cooked until they are tender.
- Check that jam jars and pots are sterilised.
- Add the preserving or granulated sugar to the pan and heat at a low temperature setting.
- Continue heating the contents in the pan until all the sugar has dissolved.
- Then turn up the heat and boil rapidly. Check for setting point using the cold saucer test for a well-set jam.
- Spoon the loganberry jam into the sterilised jars or glass pots and seal or add lids immediately over the loganberry preserve.
History of Rubus Hybrids
Barbarb L. Bowling, who has taught pomology and horticulture at Rutgers University and Pennsylvania State University, writes in her The Berry Grower's Companion (Timber Press, 2000) about raspberries blackberries and Rubus hybrids: "purple raspberries were recogized as hybrids ... as early as 1870" while blackberry hybrids "were marketed in 1850"..."Although blackberries were domesticated in Europe by the seventeenth century, they were not cultivated by North Americans until the nineteenth century".
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