There is a particular kind of satisfaction in pulling a bag of your own raspberries from the freezer in the middle of January, when the world outside is grey and the puddings need lifting. A summer glut is a gift, but only if you deal with it while the fruit is still firm and fragrant. Leave it a day too long and you are dealing with mould rather than jam. These are the methods most of us come back to year after year, because they are quick, reliable and they keep the flavour bright.

Pick and Deal With It the Same Day

Berries are at their best for preserving when they are dry, cool and just picked. If you are picking from your own canes, go out in the morning after the dew has lifted but before the sun gets fierce. Warm fruit bruises and starts to ferment faster than you would think.

Lay them in shallow trays or baskets rather than tumbling them into a deep bucket, and do not wash them unless they genuinely need it. Dirt, grit and the occasional earwig can be dealt with by tipping the fruit gently onto a clean tea towel and picking it over. Wash only if you have to, and then drain thoroughly and pat dry — surface water is the enemy of both jam and freezing.

Sort as you go. Any bruised or split fruit should be set aside for jam or eaten straight away. Firm, unblemished berries are the ones worth freezing whole.

Freezing: The Simplest Route to a Winter Crumble

Freezing is the least fussy method and the one most households rely on. The trick is open-freezing, which stops the berries welding themselves into a solid block.

• Spread the prepared fruit in a single layer on a baking tray lined with baking parchment.
• Slide the tray into the freezer for two to three hours, until the berries are individually frozen.
• Tip them into labelled freezer bags or rigid tubs, press out as much air as you can, and seal.
• Return to the freezer, where they will keep for up to a year, though the flavour is best in the first nine months.

Write the variety and the date on the bag. It sounds fussy, but in February you will be glad to know whether you are dealing with a delicate Glen Ample raspberry or a sharp Autumn Bliss.

Strawberries are worth freezing whole or halved, depending on size. They will soften on thawing, so plan to use them in cooked puddings, smoothies or stirred through yoghurt rather than served neat. Raspberries, blackcurrants and gooseberries freeze beautifully and hold their shape far better.

If you want a shortcut for crumbles, freeze a batch already mixed with sugar — around 100g of caster sugar per kilo of fruit — so you can tip the whole lot into a dish without thinking.

Jam: Sunshine in a Jar

Jam is the traditional answer to a glut and still the most rewarding. The basic ratio is 1kg of prepared fruit to 750g of preserving sugar, though strawberries benefit from a little more sugar and a good squeeze of lemon juice to help the set.

Raspberries and strawberries are low in pectin, so use a sugar with added pectin or add a tablespoon of lemon juice per kilo. Blackcurrants and gooseberries set easily on their own.

• Warm the fruit gently in a wide, heavy-based pan until the juices run.
• Add the sugar and stir over a low heat until it has completely dissolved — no gritty scrape on the bottom of the pan.
• Bring to a rolling boil and hold it there, stirring only occasionally, until the setting point is reached. That is usually 105°C on a thermometer, or when a teaspoon of jam on a chilled saucer wrinkles as you push it with a finger.
• Skim off the foam, leave to settle for ten minutes, then pour into warm, sterilised jars and seal.

Do not double the quantity in one pan. Two smaller batches set far more reliably than one enormous one, and the colour stays brighter too.

Drying, Leathers and Other Small Tricks

Drying intensifies flavour and takes up almost no space. A dehydrator set to 60°C will dry halved strawberries in six to ten hours; a fan oven on its lowest setting, with the door propped ajar on a wooden spoon, will do the same in a similar time. The fruit is ready when it is leathery but still pliable — it should bend rather than snap.

Dried berries are excellent stirred into porridge, added to breakfast cereal or chopped into scones. Raspberry and strawberry purée spread thinly on parchment and dried until tacky makes fruit leather, which is almost universally popular with children and travels well in a lunchbox.

Two other things worth doing with a glut: cook fruit down into a plain, unsweetened purée and freeze it in ice cube trays for smoothies and sauces, and freeze whole berries in single portions for the freezer-to-bowl breakfast habit.

Putting the Store to Work

A winter crumble made from frozen raspberries and a handful of dried ones, with a little ground almond in the topping, tastes of August even in a February gale. Frozen berries go into the dish straight from the freezer — add ten minutes to the cooking time and a tablespoon of cornflour to catch the juices.

Jam stirred through rice pudding, spooned over pancakes or folded into a plain sponge is the sort of thing that makes a grey Sunday feel generous. And a scattering of dried berries over the morning porridge is a small daily reminder that the garden did, after all, come good this year.