Sunday, January 24, 2010

Oratia Plum Jam

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Plum jam is one of my favourite, and as I live near some beautiful orchards in Oratia, west of Auckland, I like to make the most of the plentiful supply. This year my neighbors invited me to pick from their fruit trees, the variety was great and the fruit delicious.








Plum Jam


Ingredients

For each Kg of plums I used 600 g of sugar, (because I like my plum jam a little tart) and one teaspoon of pectin.


Wash the freshly picked fruit and place in a large saucepan with a little water. Bring the fruit to a gentle boil. When the fruit is simmering add the sugar and stir well. After 5 minutes add the pectin. Simmer the jam for about 5 more minutes and then pass through a sieve, discarding the stones.

Place the hot jam in sterilised jars, dried in the oven. At this point you can add to each jar a cinnamon stick (for dark plums) or a long pepper (for yellow plums); or you can wet the inside of the jar with a little grappa or brandy (an old Italian method). Either seal the jars with cellophane covers (available in all supermarkets) and secure with an elastic band, or use capsule lids (I use Quattro Stagioni brand).

If using capsule lids, seal the jars well, place in a pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the jars. Let the jars cool down in the pot overnight and when they are cold make sure that the capsule has popped by pressing gently on the lid. Properly sterilised jars will keep for over a year.


I also made plum paste, but I will talk about it in another post...if it turns out well :-)




7 comments:

  1. yum - I usually make some too but our tree had a severe pruning last winter and is still recovering! ;-) However, my fig tree is looking good and I might break my record of 58 fig & ginger jam jars this year ;-)

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  2. 58! Golly! I look forward to hearing what the new record is :-)

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  3. Non sai che effetto mi fa vedere queste belle prugne"di stagione"...La marmellata sarà certamente buonissima!Anche a me non paicciono troppo dolci le marmellate, infatti prediligo le composte in genere.;)
    Bacione

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  4. Have you got a jar for me? ;-D

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  5. Wow, that looks delish. I haven't had plum jam in such a long time, I must seek some out. Plums were always my favorite fruit growing up, but somehow it seemed rare to get a great one for many years. Thankfully they are great again at our farmer's markets.

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  6. Do you like damson plums, Alessandra? I make fruit cheese out of them, also plum jam. I will send you some if you like. They are organic as we don't spray anything on plum trees (well, we do spray the bronze beetles with pyrethrum, but I guess it is less harmless than chemical pesticide). Let me know, please!

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  7. Gorgeous and beatufiully presented too.

    I made my first ever batch of plum jam last year with plums given to me by a fellow plotholder, really changed my percption on plums as before I wasn't much of a fan of them.

    ReplyDelete

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