Jewels in a Jar
Old-Fashioned Preserves

Soft-set Preserves made with less sugar than ordinary jams
No added pectin or other thickeners
No preservatives

We start with our own lovingly-grown fruits. Fruits are my passion. I love every thing about growing them and eating them. It's hard to convey just how happy I am picking (and eating) luscious, ripe raspberries on a hot summer day, or harvesting the long-awaited Damson plums in September, their aroma wafting from the baskets. Fruits that are allowed to ripen in the summer sun sparkle like jewels against the foliage. Their flavor has more layers, is more complex, than that of fruits that must travel to market. It's that perfect flavor of sun-ripened fruit that I try to capture in our preserves.

We make our preserves the old-fashioned way by boiling the fruit in a wide, open kettle, with just enough sugar and freshly squeezed lemon juice to ensure a soft set. I stir every kettle of boiling fruit as it cooks down, skimming off the foam created as the juice evaporates and the preserves thicken. When I feel the resistance in the stirring spoon increase, I begin testing the fruit, coating and tilting the spoon, until the mixture falls away from the spoon in a sheet. I remove the kettle from the heat and ladle the preserves into their jars. Ralph boils the lids and covers the jars and cans them in the water bath canner. Each kettle makes only a dozen jars. (Nowadays, most jams - even homemade - are made by adding pectin, a thickener that requires lots of sugar to create a gel in just a minute.) Since we don't rely on pectin to facilitate a quick gel, we can use less sugar than most jams contain (1/3 - 1/2). Our yields are small - about half that of typical jams, but the flavor is unsurpassed.

Our preserves have a deeper color, more intense flavor, and softer texture than ordinary jams and they spread easily over toast, muffins, scones, popovers, biscuits, and waffles. They are also wonderful with desserts such as trifles, cheesecakes, crepes, tarts and puddings. They provide a brilliant addition to glazes or sauces for meat, poultry and seafood.