Mrs. Rundell’s Raspberry Jam (1859)

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This 1859 recipe for raspberry jam is bright, delicious, and tastes like summer in a jar.

A few years ago, I planted a huge raspberry patch, in what used to be a little sheep pasture along one side of our yard. This year that berry patch has truly come into its own, and we are in raspberry heaven over here at the moment.

One of you lovely readers had requested to see a particular Naples Biscuits recipe featured here in the newsletter. Since it calls for jam, I thought what a lovely thing it would be, to make a batch of authentic 1800’s raspberry jam to use for it.

The jam recipe I settled on comes from Mrs. Rundell’s beloved tome, A New System of Domestic Cookery. First published in 1806, it’s widely considered to have been the most popular English cookery book, throughout the first half of that century.

It was widely reprinted, and went through many editions. The volume in my collection is from 1859, and it’s such a delightful little book.

This jam recipe does not disappoint. It’s everything you want it to be… brightly flavored, not fussy, quick to make, and tastes like summer. Hope you love it!

Here’s a photo of the recipe as it appears in the cookbook:

A FEW COOKING NOTES:

“Boiling Very Quickly” This recipe is just so easy and straightforward, there’s almost nothing here that begs clarification. 

The one thing I’ll say is that finding the balance between “boiling very quickly” and scorching those gorgeous berries on the bottom of your “preserving-pan”, is all about the constant stirring. 

Stir, stir, stir.

About that juice getting “wasted” Of course what they mean here is that you’re going to simmer until the whole lovely mass cooks down, so that it’s getting thick and not very juicy anymore. 

This is, to be sure, a bit subjective. I cooked mine until it was easy to see the bottom of the pot just for a moment, as I drew the wooden spoon through the mixture, before the remaining juice covered the bottom again. I was afraid I’d not cooked it quite dry enough, but once the jam was done, I realized those fears were unfounded. Don’t worry about cooking down all the juice, just cook until it’s reduced quite significantly.

Is half an hour really enough? 

Yes. If you start the timer once it begins to simmer again after adding the sugar, half an hour is perfect. You may be tempted to cook it longer, since it won’t seem very thick while it’s hot and simmering, but hold fast and follow the directions. That jam will thicken up beautifully as it cools. 

Can you can this jam? 

The right answer here is that you should only can modern, safety-tested recipes, like those from the Ball Blue Book, and the ​National Center for Home Food Preservation​. 

The long and honest answer is that I did end up canning the jam from this recipe, and here’s why I personally felt comfortable doing that, in this particular case:

The Ball Blue Book’s canning recipe for raspberry jam lists ingredient measurements in cups, (instead of the more precise measurement by weight that our 1859 recipe uses). Out of curiosity I measured the volume, in cups, of my 50 ounces of berries and 50 ounces of sugar, and found the ratio to be so close to that of the measurements listed in the Ball Blue Book recipe, that I felt comfortable canning this 1800’s recipe according to the 10 minute waterbath method prescribed by Ball. 

The volume of my berries was just a fragment short of being in exact proportion with the Ball recipe, but if I’d crushed and measured them immediately after picking, instead of after they’d sat in a big bowl in my refrigerator over night, that same 50 ounces of berries would have more generously filled those measuring cups. (I do SO prefer the precision of measurement by weight, if you can’t tell.) 

To be clear though, please don’t let me sway you on issues of food safety here, nor encourage you to can a recipe that was written long before modern canning safety standards were established.

How much jam does this recipe make? 

It all depends on the amount of berries and sugar you use. One day’s picking (after the kids ate their weight in berries for lunch) was 50 ounces, so I matched that with 50 ounces of sugar. This yielded just shy of 8 half-pint jars of beautiful jam. 

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Just a reminder that if you ever have a particular type of recipe you’d like to see here, just send me an email and I’ll try to find one. I’m always happy to hear from you!

📖 Recipe