On MBD homestead, we have a lot of plums. And like many fruit trees, they pretty much ripen all at once. My jobs with the trees is to feed and weed the trees in late winter, thin out the fruit after it sets in April, pick the fruit in July, but not really eat the plums. They are fairly high in sugar and not so tasty to me. I also LOVE making and canning jam. I used to do this a lot before kids, and even when Matt was pretty young. But it is very hot work in the hot part of summer, and I always worried about somehow getting boiling “prejam” on him. So I stopped canning for the most part. But I have my own house now with great AC, and no crawlers. So I went looking for some recipes and made a few quarter pints of plum jam last week. And since everyone now wants less sugar, I copied and combined a couple recipes to make a low sugar jam. It was pretty tasty.
Start here: Sterilize the jars by placing them in boiling water for at least 10 minutes before filling. I tend to place them in the sink, fill with boiling water for 10 minutes, top off with more boiling water every couple of minutes. About 5 minutes before filling I drain them and place them upside down on a clean cloth – just a minute or two before filling. THE JARS ARE VERY HOT – handle with care. I also place the flat one time use lids in a clean bigger jar of boiling water to warm up the sealant. It is all very hot! Use canning grabbing tongs!
You need: food scale, quartered and pitted plums, granulated sugar, low sugar pectin, clean warm canning jars with new lids, lid rings ( can be reused many times), and canning tongs. It is very nice to also have a canning steel funnel.
Recipe: this is based on weight of plums you are jamming so there is variability in it. Basically I took 3 similar recipes and combined them! This one uses low sugar pectin. Pectin is a soluble fiber that binds into long gel strings with sugar and acid. There are some recipes that do not use pectin and really cook down the peels- I went for what seemed more reliable to set.
1 “set” you can double or triple this depending on how many plums you have:
300 g quartered and pitted plums. Remove any loose skin but do not peel. Can be thawed frozen plums also.
80 – 100 g granulated sugar ( the less sugar the less reliable the set). I stayed 3:1.
20 g low sugar pectin
Directions: start water boiling in a large pan with a lid (at least 2 times the height of your jars). Add plums to another sauce pan with the sugar. With low heat mix them together; while stirring slowly increase the heat until the mixture is a slow boil. You can watch the water leave the fruit and boil off- this is the key part to making a jam. If you see the plum skins come off the plum and just float on the surface, scoop them out. You will leave just a small amount of skins in the final jam so I simply removed any skin as it loosened from the fruit. Most of the skin does come loose.
Once the mixture is boiling well and most of the skins are off (about 8-9 minutes of boiling) add the pectin and mix well. Make sure your jars are ready for filling. Reduce the heat and keep stirring until everything is ready for filling – at least 2 minutes after the pectin is fully dissolved. Remove a few lids at a time from the hot water and place near the mostly dried warm sterilized jars. Pour the jam into the jar carefully avoiding the top glass of the jar (this is where the funnel comes in quite handy!). Leave about 1/4 inch space at the top. Make sure the top of the jar is clean then place the warm lids on the jar and use the rings to firmly, but not tightly, push the soft part of the lid onto the edge of the jar. Then place the jars into a gently boiling water filled pan using the tongs. Once the last jar is in the boiling water, put the lid on that pan, reduce the heat to a very gently boil for ten minutes.
Using the tongs, remove the jars after 10 minutes of boiling and place gently right side up on a clean cloth on the counter to dry and cool. You will hear the lids “pop” as they “suction” downward and the jam cools. It can take 12-15 hours for the lids to seal. After 15 hours, anything that didn’t seal becomes refrigerator jam. The others will stay sealed even after you remove the rims.
I know there are a lot of words here, but actually jams are not terribly hard to make. Especially, the plum type jams because they set very well. But you do need to focus and have time that is not interrupted- about 45 minutes should work. I might try a berry jam next although this year I will have to buy them- but not next year!
