Jam Cake

This family recipe celebrates two women. By using two different jams, I feel that I am entwining their histories, at least as long as the cake lasts. Aunt Robin, whom I met in Rensselaerville in Upstate New York, prepares jam by a family method from ingredients that grow in the garden of her sprawling farmhouse. She doesn’t use pectin and seals her jars with paraffin. She delights in giving all her jam away. Patsy comes from the other side of the mountain, where her family has lived for ove