Five Fruits Jam Cockaigne

I have been wanting to make this for almost a year (I just missed these fruits in season last year when I re-discovered the recipe). I also went through a phase of wanting to make it when I was in grad school, but never got the chance during joint summer fruit/field season. This week we got gooseberries, red currants, sweet cherries, and red raspberries all at the farmer's market. We missed strawberries (were hoping for one week of overlap between currants/gooseberries and strawberries, but it was not to be) and had to end up using California ones from the grocery. The Joy recipe suggests you can put up strawberries first, then finish the jam when the other fruits are in season. A good idea.

The recipe is from the Joy of Cooking, where I originally found it, but we used the updated Joy All About Canning and Preserving version, which meets the new USDA standards.

Five Fruits Jam Cockaigne
About nine 1/2 pint jars

Stem, hull, or pit as necessary,
placing each fruit in its own bowl:
1 pound strawberries
1.5 pounds red currants
1 pound sweet cherries
1 pound gooseberries
1 pound red raspberries

Put strawberries in one pan,
currants and cherries in
another, and gooseberries
and raspberries in a third pan.
Lightly crush all but the
goosberries and raspberries.

Measure: 7 cups sugar

Mix 1 cup of the sugar with the strawberries and 3 cups of sugar with the fruits in each of the remaning pans. Bring each jam to a boil, stirring frequently. Cook to the jelling point.

Remove from the heat and skim off any foam. Combine the jams before ladling into hot jars. Leave 1/4 inch headspace, and process for 10 minutes.


Last week we made strawberry rhubarb jam (with pectin) and went too far past the jelling point. It is yummy but seriously verging on hard. Gun shy, we undershot here. Sometimes it is hard to tell how jelled jam is when it's still hot, and we really thought it was ok, based on the foaming subsiding, and the cold plate test, and I think Kels was measuring temperature too. Anyway, we made sauce, and we canned it before we realized (rats). Also, I wonder if we shouldn't have crushed more, or cut things up some. Many gooseberries were still whole, and cherries and strawberries could have been cut up, for a more even texture. Lastly, I wish it were a little less sweet--possibly crushing the gooseberries would help with this, but I wonder if we couldn't add some pectin and cut down on the sugar? We were slightly under on gooseberries but slightly over on red currant proportions, so I thought they would cancel out and leave us with the right tart/sweet balance. And, as always, the recipes never make the amount we think they will (thought this wasn't as hilarious as our canning a single jar of jam, as in a prior escapade!).