Friday evening, we ran out of Bonne Maman blackcurrant jam. Not an issue of course, we'll just buy a new jar. But i got thinking, what if we start making our own jam? It can't be that hard and surely it'll be cheaper in the long run, even though we don't eat that much jam anyway.

And indeed, after doing a bit of research, i found making jam is really simple. All we need is geleisuiker (a mixture of sugar, pectin and citric acid; € 1,29 a 500 gram package), fruit for a jam or fruit juice to make a jelly (UK: fruit spread) and lemon juice.

As we tend to eat berry-jams, we decided on making our own berry jam, to compare the taste directly to the known factory made jam. Unfortunately, as it's not berry season yet, there's not much choice in fresh berries. And what is available, is ridiculous expensive: € 1,59 for a 125 gram box. So we settled on frozen raspberries, 300 gram, € 2,09.

Making the jam was easy: mashing the raspberries, mixing it with the geleisuiker and lemon juice, boil it for a while and then poor it in a jar. We ended up with one and a quarter jar of raspberry jam.

Cost breakdown:
The frozen raspberries: € 2,09 (300 gram).
The geleisuiker, 125 gram used: € 0,32 (€ 1,59 per 500 gram package).
Juice of half a lemon: € 0,28. (€ 1,69 per three).
Other costs are steralising the jars, which i don't count here, as they simply went in the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes. And we also used a bit energy to boil the fruits, but no idea how much; would 10 cents be a good estimate? In total we spent 2,09 + 0,32 + 0,28 + 0,10 = € 2,79 to make one and a quarter jar of jam, which is € 2,23 per jar.

A jar Bonne Maman raspberry jam costs € 2,05. So much for cost effectiveness of making your own jam...

However, i do think making your own jams will be cheaper, if you buy your fruits in season, in larger batches and not at our local supermarket. Obviously, it's even much cheaper picking your own berries.

Apart from the costs, it is fun to make the jam ourselves and it tastes great: Very fruity, very flavoursome, tart and not too much sugar. Not bad at all for a first.

We most likely will be making our own jams from now on. But only with much cheaper in-season fruits.