Organic Raspberry and Chocolate Jam

Since my visit to Niedermorschwihr and Les Relais des Trois Epis de Madame Ferber I've been obsessed with jams and I've been experimenting some new flavors and mixtures almost everyday. I must confess that sometimes, in face of some of the best jams I have ever made, I wish I had the guts to start a jam business. All natural and organic jam producer I would be. My jam dreams became the perfect pair to the fruits of our garden specially our organic raspberries. Raspberries are perfect to mix with other fruits and a small amount is sufficient to add color and the most amazing perfume and elevate the jam to another level. So far I have mixed raspberries (with and without seeds) to peaches, cloudberries, chocolate, rhubarb and apple.



Our raspberry harvest this summer was plenty and lasted wonderfully long even if everything around here was delayed for at least three weeks this year due to one of the worst winters of all times. But let's not talk about winter yet, let's talk raspberries and chocolate. Jars of this precious jams were available in Christine Ferber's relais and I could have bought one there but instead I preferred to buy other blends instead and tried to make my own raspberries and chocolate jam. Christine Ferber works with a chocolate with 64% of cocoa solids but I used an organic chocolate with 70% cocoa instead and according to her own recipe she uses a lot more sugar than I was willing to use. Besides I aimed at a 100% organic raspberry and chocolate jam so I decided to use whatever organic dark chocolate I could find. The higher content of cocoa certainly gave the jam a more intense chocolate flavor but it was perfect to me, might need some more sugar some might say. You can always add more sugar to this recipe but never remove it. One more point to Madame Ferber's score, she keeps a high score around here!



Organic raspberry and chocolate jam

(Inspired by recipe from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures).

800 organic raspberries
1 1/2 cup of organic fair trade cane sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons of lime juice
100 grams organic fair trade chocolate with 70% cocoa solids

How:

In a pan over medium heat cook the raspberries with sugar and lime juice until it starts boiling. Once it boils reduce heat and let it boil for five minutes. Remove from heat, let it cool slightly before passing the mixture through a metallic sieve. Press well mixture, with a spoon to get as much juice as possible and discard the seeds. Measure the sieved mixture and transfer it back to the pan. Add more sugar if you think it is necessary and let the mixture cook over medium heat until boils is slightly reduced, 5 and 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove from heat and add the bits of chocolate whisking with a wire whisk to incorporate the chocolate completely. Add 100grams of chocolate for each 500ml of jam. Transfer the jam to a sterilized jar and close the lid tight. Let it cool completely and refrigerate. Keep refrigerated.

1. I recommend to keep it refrigerated and consume in two weeks after the jar is open.
2. I have sieved the pulp through a not very tight metal sieve and some seeds pass through the net and I think it looks perfect, those little seeds are the trademark of the raspberry, right?