Savoring the harvest: Roasted raspberry spoon jam

by June

Rain is rattling against the window panes. Outside, the sky is low and dark, but the grass is a lively green and the trees that edge the woods have leaves so bright they seem to give off a kind of light. A fire takes the chill off. I consider that it might be the perfect autumn day. But, then, I considered the same thing two days ago when I was picking raspberries and the sky was blue and filled with wispy clouds, when the leaves were coming down in pirouettes and the children and goats were doing their own kind of dance across the meadow. Maybe Monday was the perfect autumn day for picking raspberries, and today is the perfect one for eating spoon jam on fresh bread.

Our everbearing raspberry patch is small. But this year it has done deliciously by us. It gave us a modest bounty early in the summer. Now it is thick with berries-to-be that would fill many a jar of jam. Except that the frost will probably nip hard soon. We've been enjoying the berries as they come. It is surely one of life's luxuries to get up in the morning and walk through dewy grass to pick raspberries into a bowl of cereal. We've had them on yogurt, baked into brownies and into our favorite cake. We've steeped some in spirits and hidden it away for the holidays. And we've jammed them in small batches.

My favorite raspberry jam recipe was shared with me in a raspberry patch on top of a hill on a farm I love. I think of that farm every time I make Roasted Raspberry Spoon Jam. It could not be simpler, and you can make it with a handful or a bucketful. Whatever amount of raspberries you have, you just match it with an equal amount of sugar.

We had a brimming cup of berries one day. We put them in an oven-safe dish.

We measured a brimming cup of sugar into another oven-safe dish.

Then each dish went into a preheated, 350-degree F oven for 20 to 25 minutes—until the berries were just beginning to caramelize. Working very carefully, I then poured the sugar into the berries and stirred as it turned almost instantly into a lava-flow of sweet-smelling jam.

This simple jam never lasts long around here, but while it does, it is the taste of autumn: fresh berries filled with a summer's sunshine and just a hint of warm smokiness. It's cobbler on a spoon.