We've finished canning the plum jam. It's amazing how you can take a dark blue fruit with green pulp and end up with a beautiful plum colored jam!
The chopped plums, sugar and lemon juice sat for two hours while the juice flowed from the pulp. We put it on the stove top and brought it to a rolling boil. Elegante Mother skimmed the foam from the top, and I worked on getting the jars ready for the canning.
As the jam was cooking, I asked EM if leaving the skins of the plums in the jam wasn't a bit odd. She said "Yes!" so that sent me scurrying for our copy of "Stocking Up."
I didn't find the definitive answer to whether the plums should be skinned prior to cooking or not, but I suspect that the pulp needs to be cooked with the skins in order to develop the color and the pectin needed to jell.
So, I got out the food mill. When the jam had cooked for 30 minutes, I took small batches and forced it through the food mill, separating the pulp from the skins. By the time the utensils were scraped off and the pulp had been canned we had six four ounce jars of jam plus most of a seventh.
The jam is a bit runny, and a gorgeous deep reddish purple. It's tart, with a lot of intense plum flavor. Although I wish we had produced more jars of jam for the effort, I think the taste is going to make it all worthwhile.
If I can find the larger Italian purple plums, we might have another go at jam making, but you can bet I'm going to surf on the subject of what to do with the skin!
Comments (7)
I've never heard of anyone removing the skins - when we make plum jam they soften with cooking and are the most delicious part in the finished jam.
Posted by Blue Witch | August 31, 2005 7:14 AM
Posted on August 31, 2005 07:14
And - when we make damson (small plum) jam, we just put the plums in whole and fish the stones out all in one go at the end (boiling it all with the stones with the kernels in improves the set). The odd stone gets left in sometimes, but is very obvious when spread on bread or toast, and so easy to remove. Saves hours!
Posted by Blue Witch | August 31, 2005 7:17 AM
Posted on August 31, 2005 07:17
BW...I'm SURE that my mother didn't go through the process of removing the skins when she made the jam. I would have been called to the kitchen to help if that was the case. AND, NONE of the recipes for Damson plum jam that I found on-line mentioned it.
I'm not surprised that the pits add to the flavor of the jam. What I wonder is, can other types of plums be substituted in the Damson plum recipe and still have it turn out right? I assume not all plums have the same amount of pectin, or acid.
Posted by Buffy | August 31, 2005 4:49 PM
Posted on August 31, 2005 16:49
Plum jam made with other varieties is often difficult to get to set hard.
In the UK we have a product called "Certo" - commercially produced liquid natural apple pectin which you can add to any fruit that has poor pectin.
Lemon juice also helps (but fresh squeezed - one lemon per pound of fruit, put in after the sugar has dissolved, not the nasty commerically produced bottled stuff).
Personally I think that many recipes make jam-making sound really hard. It isn't. And, if the worst comes to the worst and it won't set hard, so what? Use it as a sauce for something. Most jam that is initially too runny will set hard over a few months too.
Posted by Blue Witch | September 1, 2005 11:50 AM
Posted on September 1, 2005 11:50
I wondered about that, BW. Almost all of the plum jam recipes I found were for Damsons.
We have Certo and Sure Jell here, but I was trying to recreate what I thought I saw my mother do when she made jam, and I think her recipe was plums and sugar!
Orangette's recipe called for the juice from half a lemon, for blackberry jam. From what you've said, I'd need a lot more lemon juice for the plum jam.
This jam can be spooned on bread, and would be excellent with vanilla ice cream. I suspect that it could be used as a filling for baked goods.
I'm not at all unhappy about the outcome of my efforts. Next time, though, I'll work with a slightly larger plum.
Posted by Buffy | September 1, 2005 3:07 PM
Posted on September 1, 2005 15:07
Mmmm... sounds very lovely, and too, the process of doing it with your Mom must have made this a very enjoyable activity!
Posted by Desiree | September 2, 2005 6:52 PM
Posted on September 2, 2005 18:52
It was, Desiree. I'm storing up these memories.
Posted by Buffy | September 3, 2005 3:13 PM
Posted on September 3, 2005 15:13