Cardamom and Tea

Strawberries and rhubarb are spring’s dream team. Each is lovely on its own, but together? Magic. This strawberry rhubarb jam lands somewhere between a chunky preserve and a tangy, low-sugar jam. By cooking it low and slow, its natural sugars and pectins concentrate and it sets beautifully, despite containing only 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp granulated sugar. It’s a bold way to add a splash of strawberry-rhubarb flavor to just about anything without getting too-too sweet.

Since it’s tricky to find rhubarb out of season, I like to make a little extra jam to freeze for later in the year. You can also make this recipe with frozen rhubarb and frozen strawberries. Whether you’re about to be in peak spring (or you’re reading this later and you’re still months away), I hope this brings a little spring flavor to your table.

victoria sponge cake being layered, rugelach before rolling up, and a whipped cream fool

Ways to use up that jar of strawberry rhubarb jam

Once you make a jar, the possibilities are endless. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Folded into strawberry rhubarb fool
Sandwiched in a Victoria sponge cake
In a recipe for rugelach in place of the jam (especially one with chocolate—I have a recipe in Piecemeal)
On top of chocolate mousse
On strawberry shortcakes, in addition to fresh sliced strawberries
Spread a thin layer on a cheesecake and top with sliced strawberries
Top a bowl of oatmeal
Fill a batch of choux buns with this jam and whipped cream
Spread on cream scones
Make a cheese board with Camembert or Brie, this jam, pecans, and a crusty, seedy whole-grain bread
Make a PB&J with strawberry rhubarb jam in place of whatever jelly you’d normally use
Make a lemon poppy seed dressing, and use this jam instead of the honey or sweetener
Swirl into plain yogurt
Spoon over or swirl into ice cream

strawberry rhubarb compote in a jar with a spoon photographed from overhead

strawberry rhubarb fools photographed from overhead

strawberry rhubarb victoria sponge cake with powdered sugar being dusted on top

strawberry rhubarb rugelach on a baking sheet photographed from above

Step-by-step instructions

(or check out the video at the end of the recipe below)

Place the water in a 10 in [25 cm] skillet.

Then add the strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat without stirring.

Once it comes to a simmer, lower the heat to medium-low and give it a stir.

Let it gently simmer, uncovered, for 40 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally (do not intentionally mash up the pieces when you stir or it will take longer to reduce).

You’ll need to stir it more often during the last 10 minutes.

It’s done once the whole thing has reduced by about half, and if you drag a spoon across the bottom it does not fill back in.

Chill before serving.

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam (lower sugar)

strawberry rhubarb jam in a jar with a spoon photographed from overhead

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Yield: 1½ cups [400 g]

Ingredients

1 Tbsp water
2 cups [320 g] sliced strawberries
2 cups [300 g] sliced rhubarb
¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp [75 g] sugar
Pinch of salt

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Instructions

Place the water in a 10 in [25 cm] skillet, then add the strawberries, rhubarb, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium heat without stirring.
Once it comes to a simmer, lower the heat to medium-low and give it a stir. Let it gently simmer, uncovered, for 40 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally (do not intentionally mash up the pieces when you stir or it will take longer to reduce). You’ll need to stir it more often during the last 10 minutes.
It’s done once the whole thing has reduced by about half, and if you drag a spoon across the bottom it does not fill back in. Chill before serving.

Notes

A note on scaling: If you halve this recipe, it will take more like 20 minutes to cook down completely in a 10 in [25 cm] skillet. To double it, it’s best to use two separate pans, or it will take about 90 minutes to reduce. If you do decide to double it in one pot, only add 1 Tbsp of water (do not double the water), and use a taller, wider stockpot, because it will splatter more than a smaller batch.

Storage: When properly reduced to a paste, strawberry rhubarb jam keeps for up to 1 week in the refrigerator (discard if it starts to separate, gets moldy, or smells oﬀ), or for at least 3 months in the freezer with no loss of quality. Freeze in small containers, so that you can use a little at a time. It’s not a full-sugar jam, so it won’t keep as long in the fridge.

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Psst… by the way, I love this recipe so much, I ended up including it in my cookbook, Piecemeal.

If you like this jam as much as I do, you might like my book! It’s full of mix-and-match recipes and inspiration for fun and easy meals.

Almost all rhubarb cookies treat chunks of rhubarb as if they are chocolate chips, mixing them into the dough and calling it a day. This might yield an okay cookie, but I think we can do better. After all, bits of rhubarb aren’t anything like chocolate chips—let’s not expect them to be.

By spending a quick 15 minutes turning our rhubarb into a 2-ingredient jam, we end up with a very intentional cookie that tastes rhubarby as heck. And as an added bonus, these rhubarb thumbprints look gorgeous, with little pools of deep pink jam in the center of a soft and chewy vanilla cookie.

Jam-making might seem intimidating or time consuming, but my rhubarb jam recipe yields a nice little batch, with enough for these cookies + a bit leftover for the fridge. Small batches of jam are simple to throw together, and they take very little time to cook down.

If you’re picturing the stockpots of jam your grandmother made every summer, this is not that. This one is for everyone, even folks who are totally new to jam making. You need no special equipment or special ingredients, just a spare 15 minutes.

Jump to the recipe to hit the ground running, or read on for a bit more context.

Making jam (or, the most impressive thing you can do with 15 minutes)

Jam, at its simplest, is just simmering fruit and sugar together until you’ve cooked off enough water that it sets. Sure, diehard jam makers use specialized ingredients and equipment like pectin, candy-making thermometers, and even sometimes digital pH meters—but those are absolutely irrelevant to this cookie recipe.

For the jam in this recipe, you just need a wide pan/pot, 1 bunch of rhubarb, sugar, salt, and water. You basically place all those ingredients together, bring to a simmer, and reduce down until it reaches the right consistency. Follow my rhubarb jam recipe and you can’t go wrong. It has a video, a step-by-step recipe, and helpful, fail-proof tips.

Here’s a quick video (but check out the post for the actual step-by-step recipe):

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A few notes on these rhubarb cookies

No chemical leavening agents (so really cream that sugar and butter!)

These cookies have no chemical leavening agents (like baking powder or soda), which is a good thing. Chemical leavening agents would cause our cookies to puff up too much in the oven, which would make the jam run over the sides.

However, this means you need to take the sugar/butter creaming step seriously. That’s the one time we incorporate air into the cookies, and it allows for just enough to make them taste light and fluffy without puffing up too much.

Less sugar = more room for jam

The ingredient ratios include less sugar than your average cookie recipe, which means the jam on top doesn’t make it overly sweet. It might seem like not enough sugar, but it’s just the right amount.

Where this recipe comes from

I typically develop my own recipes, rather than curating and/or adapting recipes from other sources. But when I decided to make a rhubarb cookie recipe, I knew I had to adapt Recipe Tin Eats‘ recipe for jam drops, which is my go-to thumbprint cookie recipe. It’s simply the GOAT. The cookies are soft and chewy (rather than shortbready) and the shaping technique is easy and fail-proof.

I’ve changed Nagi’s recipe slightly, first to include rhubarb jam in particular (obviously), but also:

I rewrote the instructions in my own words and changed the method slightly.
I decided to make the cookies a bit bigger (and thus a slightly longer bake time).
I use granulated instead of caster sugar and upped the salt a bit.
I shifted one of the volume/weight quantities to better reflect my own conversion chart (which I’ve spent years perfecting, and which I think yields very good results for both volume and weight baking). As with any baking recipe, you’ll get more consistent results with weight measurements, but volume works fine if you don’t have a scale.