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Blackcurrant jam is one of those preserves you simply can’t buy in a store, so if you want that deep, tangy, almost spiced flavor on your toast, you’ll have to make it yourself. It’s one of my favorite jams, and it’s a sad year when I don’t make time to put up a big batch.
Blackcurrants are naturally high in pectin, so they set into a thick, rich jam with no added pectin at all. They do need a good bit of sugar to balance their astringency, but otherwise this follows the same simple, old-fashioned approach as most of my small-batch jams, just with a couple of quirks worth knowing before you start.
Table of Contents
- Notes from my Kitchen
- Ingredients for Blackcurrant Jam
- How to Make Blackcurrant Jam
- Testing for Gel Stage (Don’t Overcook)
- Canning Blackcurrant Jam
- Altitude Adjustments
- Yield and Batch Size
- Storage Options
- Recipe Tips and Variations
- Ways to Use Blackcurrant Jam
- Blackcurrant Jam FAQs
- More Ways to Preserve Blackcurrants
- Blackcurrant Jam Recipe for Canning
- Jam Recipes
Blackcurrants are a shady woodland fruit, and a single established bush can produce many quarts of berries in a season. They’ve been slow to catch on in the US, in part because they were banned in some states for much of the last century, but they’re making a real comeback at farmers’ markets and pick-your-owns as the local food movement grows.
They’re an easy crop too, producing heavily without spraying or much fuss. If you find yourself with a glut, there are dozens of ideas in my roundup of creative ways to use blackcurrants.
One thing to settle up front is jam versus jelly. This is a jam, which means the skins and pulp stay right in the pot for a rich, textured spread. If you’d rather have a smooth, seedless preserve, you’ll want to strain the fruit and make a blackcurrant jelly instead.
Both are wonderful, so it really comes down to the texture you prefer.
Notes from my Kitchen
Our woodland homestead is shady and cool, which turns out to be exactly what blackcurrants love. A single one of our bushes will hand us well over ten pounds of fruit in a good year, far more than we could ever eat fresh, so a big batch of this jam is a summer ritual around here. The deep, spicy flavor of a blackcurrant is hard to describe, but it’s a huge hit with kids and adults alike in my house.
So the real question, does it get the toddler seal of approval? To be fair, my little one likes tart fruit, and she’ll eat the blackcurrants right off the bush.
Still, she ate it right up saying, “It tastes just like strawberry jam, but sour, and that’s really good.” I’m not sure that’s the best description, but it’s hard enough for an adult to accurately describe the flavor of a blackcurrant, so I’ll cut this 3-year old a bit of slack.
Ingredients for Blackcurrant Jam
This is a short ingredient list, with the measurements in the recipe card below. Here’s what each one does.
- Blackcurrants: Pick over the fruit and remove the stems and any spent flowers still clinging to the berries. Fresh and frozen currants both work well. Red or yellow currants can stand in for part of the fruit if that’s what you have.
- Granulated sugar: Blackcurrants are quite astringent, and here the sugar isn’t just for sweetness, it balances that sharp edge. This is the one jam where I don’t cut the sugar, since an under-sweetened batch turns bitter rather than pleasantly tart.
- Lemon juice (optional): A few tablespoons brighten the flavor, though it isn’t needed for the set or for safe canning. Blackcurrants are already high in acid, so the lemon is purely for taste.
I know it feels like a lot of sugar, especially if you usually make low-sugar preserves the way I do with my low sugar strawberry jam. Blackcurrants are the exception. If you want to reduce it, start by cutting no more than a quarter of the sugar and taste before you commit, since it’s easy to end up with a sharp, bitter batch.
Thank you very much for this recipe and your concise description of the process, especially the details about elevation and sugar. I’ve scanned a lot of recipes and made yours twice now, and it comes out great.
How to Make Blackcurrant Jam
Blackcurrant jam takes a little longer than a quick, fast-setting berry jam like raspberry jam, mostly because there’s a fair bit of fruit to cook down. It has more in common with a batch of gooseberry jam, another tart, high-pectin fruit. The steps themselves are simple, and the whole thing comes together in under an hour.
Cooking the Jam
Start by simmering the blackcurrants gently in a thick-bottomed pot. They release their juice quickly, and within about ten minutes you’ll have a pot of dark juice with the softened berry skins floating in it. Don’t skim anything off, since those skins and all that pulp are what give a real jam its body and texture.
Add the sugar and the lemon juice if you’re using it, then keep it at a steady simmer.
It will foam up dramatically at this stage, so make sure your pot started no more than two-thirds full and stir it down whenever it threatens to climb the sides.
After about twenty to thirty minutes, the foaming settles, and the texture visibly changes, turning silky, with big glossy bubbles that swell slowly before they pop. That’s the jam just reaching its set. Cook it a minute or two more, then get it into jars.
Testing for Gel Stage (Don’t Overcook)
This is the single most important thing to get right with blackcurrant jam. These berries are so high in pectin that cooking them all the way to the usual 220°F gel point turns the jam into a stiff paste you can barely spoon out of the jar. Stop too late and you’ll have a hockey puck instead of a spread.
- Watch the pot, not just the clock. When the heavy foaming stops and the surface turns silky with big, slow, glossy bubbles, the jam is setting. That’s your cue.
- Finish below 220°F. If you use a thermometer, blackcurrant jam is usually done around 216 to 218°F, not the 220°F most recipes quote. I pull mine right around there, and it sets up beautifully once cool.
- Adjust for your elevation. Water boils about 1 degree lower for every 500 feet of elevation, so gel stage drops too. Here at 1,000 feet, my finish temperature lands near 218°F. Skipping this step is the top reason a batch over-sets, and it catches people off guard at every elevation.
Canning Blackcurrant Jam
You don’t have to can this jam. It keeps in the refrigerator for a month or two, so a small batch can simply go in the fridge. If you’d like it shelf-stable for the pantry, it’s a quick water bath process, and my beginner’s guide to water bath canning covers the whole setup if you’re new to it.
To can it, ladle the hot jam into prepared jars, leaving 1/4 inch of headspace. Wipe the rims, apply two-part lids finger-tight, and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Half-pint and pint jars use the same 10-minute time. Once the jars are cool, check that every lid has sealed, and refrigerate any that didn’t.
Altitude Adjustments
Adjust your water bath processing time for elevation:
- Below 6,000 feet: Process for 10 minutes
- Above 6,000 feet: Process for 15 minutes
And remember, elevation changes your gel temperature too, not just the processing time. That’s the key to a blackcurrant jam that sets soft and spreadable instead of stiff.
Yield and Batch Size
This recipe is written as a big batch, which suits how generously the bushes produce.
- Three pounds of blackcurrants, about 9 cups, with 2 1/2 pounds of sugar makes roughly 6 to 7 half-pint jars.
- The recipe divides in half cleanly if you’d rather make a smaller batch.
- Keep the pot no more than two-thirds full at the start, since this jam foams up a great deal as it cooks.
Storage Options
However you finish it, here’s how long blackcurrant jam will keep:
- Refrigerator: 1 to 2 months in a covered jar.
- Freezer: Up to 6 months. Use a straight-sided, freezer-safe jar and leave extra headspace for expansion, rather than the 1/4 inch used for canning.
- Canned: 12 to 18 months in a cool, dark pantry once sealed.
Recipe Tips and Variations
A few things I’ve learned making this jam year after year, plus some ways to branch out:
- Respect the sugar. Blackcurrants are the one fruit I don’t skimp on. If you cut too much sugar, the jam turns sharp and bitter rather than brightly tart.
- Go seedless if you like. To make a smooth blackcurrant jelly instead, strain the cooked fruit through a jelly bag before adding sugar. And don’t toss the leftover pulp, since it makes a lovely fruit leather stirred together with a little unsweetened applesauce.
- Mix in other fruit. A handful of blueberries or a few red currants rounds out the tartness nicely if you’re a little short on blackcurrants.
- Use frozen currants. Frozen blackcurrants work just as well as fresh. Cook them straight from frozen, no need to thaw first.
- Look beyond jam. If your bushes really produce, blackcurrants make a wonderful blackcurrant mead or a rich homemade cassis.
Ways to Use Blackcurrant Jam
Blackcurrant jam is a classic on toast and warm scones, and it’s the traditional filling for jammy dodgers and linzer cookies. Its deep, spiced flavor really comes alive alongside savory food, as a glaze for roast lamb, duck, or game, or spooned next to a sharp cheese on a board. I also stir it into yogurt and oatmeal, swirl it through cakes, and thin a little with hot water for a homemade version of the blackcurrant cordial so beloved across the pond.
Once you’ve got a few jars put away, there’s no shortage of ways to enjoy them. My roundup of ways to use up a jar of jam has plenty more ideas for working through the harvest.
Blackcurrant Jam FAQs
Blackcurrants are extremely high in natural pectin, so a batch cooked too long sets into a stiff paste once it cools. The usual cause is cooking all the way to the standard 220°F gel point, which is too far for this fruit. Finish blackcurrant jam around 216 to 218°F instead, and adjust down for your elevation, since gel stage drops about 1 degree for every 500 feet above sea level.
No. For jam, leave all the skins and pulp right in the pot, since they give the finished spread its body and texture. You only strain the fruit if you want a smooth, seedless blackcurrant jelly instead, which is a separate process that filters out the solids.
Blackcurrants don’t make a good low-sugar jam. They’re quite astringent, and the sugar balances that sharpness, so cutting too much leaves the jam bitter rather than pleasantly tart. If you want to reduce it, cut no more than a quarter of the sugar and taste before committing to a full batch.
No pectin is needed, since blackcurrants are naturally very high in pectin and set firmly on their own. Lemon juice is optional and used only for flavor, not for the set or for safe canning, since the fruit is already high in acid.
Yes. Frozen blackcurrants work just as well as fresh, which is handy since freezing lets you gather enough fruit over time or preserve a big harvest until you’re ready to cook. Cook them straight from frozen, with no need to thaw first.
More Ways to Preserve Blackcurrants
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Blackcurrant Jam Recipe for Canning
Equipment
- Canning Jars, Lids, and Rings
Ingredients
- 9 cups blackcurrants, stemmed
- 5 cups sugar
- 3 tbsp lemon juice, optional
Instructions
- Pick over the blackcurrants, removing the stems and any spent flowers. Add them to a thick-bottomed pot and simmer on low until they release their juice, about 10 minutes. Don't skim off the skins or pulp, since they give the jam its texture.
- Add the sugar and lemon juice, if using. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the heavy foaming stops and the jam turns silky with big, glossy, slow-popping bubbles, about 20 to 30 minutes. Keep the pot no more than two-thirds full to prevent boil-overs.
- Finish below the usual gel point. Blackcurrants are so high in pectin that they over-set, so pull the jam around 216 to 218°F rather than 220°F, adjusting down for your elevation. Cook just a minute or two past the texture change, then jar.
- Ladle into jars leaving 1/4 inch headspace, apply two-part lids finger tight, and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. Half-pint and pint jars use the same time. Alternatively, store in the refrigerator and use within a month or two.
Notes
No Pectin or Added Acid Needed: The fruit is high in both pectin and acid. Lemon juice is optional and used for flavor only, not for the set or safe canning. Jam vs Jelly: Leave the skins and pulp in for jam. Strain the cooked fruit through a jelly bag for a smooth, seedless jelly instead. Frozen Currants: Cook straight from frozen, with no need to thaw first. Processing and Altitude: Process 10 minutes below 6,000 feet, or 15 minutes above 6,000 feet. Half-pint and pint jars use the same time.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Jam Recipes
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I ran short of the six pounds of black currants called for in the recipe, so I substituted 1 pound 4 ounces of blueberries from the garden. Plus I added the suggested lemon juice. I ended up with 6 pints of delicious jam. Thank you!
That sounds delicious! I’m so glad it worked out for you.