Garner Produce

Still have plums left over from last week?? Try Plum Jam!

August 29, 2012 at 11:25 am emilyssweets Leave a comment

I experimented with plum jam this week since I got two boxes and had tons of yummy plums. I found its WAY easier than it looks!!

I went to this awesome blog for some ideas for plum jam (ps its super tasty!) I used 100% white grape and peach juice so it would be no sugar added to make it healthier and honestly you can’t tell the difference if you had used regular white sugar instead.

Ingredients:

• Fruit: Apricots, Peaches, Plums or Nectarines – 5 pints (which is: 10 cups, or 2.25 liters, about 3.5 lbs, almost 1.75 kg) fresh. It comes down to about 5-6 cups peeled and chopped.

• Lemon juice – either fresh squeezed or bottled. 1/4 cup.
• Water – 1/2 cup
• Sugar – About 4.5 cups of dry, granulated (table) sugar. It is possible to make low-sugar, fruit juice-sweetened, or Stevia. (use chart below for ratios of alternative sweeteners)
• Pectin (use the box as a guide as to how much you need)
• 8, 8 oz jelly jars with lids and rings

Helpful needed tools:

• Jar funnel
• Ladle
• Large stock pot
• Small sauce pan for sanitizing the lids
• Jar grabber or something to remove the hot jars from the boiling water.
• Magnetic lid lifter (totally optional you can use tongs or anything really to get the lids out of the hot water this just is a great tool for lazy people like me!)
• Canning rack of any kind (here is a helpful DIY canning rack idea! The idea is just to keep it off the bottom of the pot)

I little prep work:

1. Start your stock pot full of water boiling. This takes forever to start since there is sooo much water. There needs to be at least enough water to fully cover the jars with at least 2 inches of water over the top. That’s a hefty amount of water.
2. Put your lids in the saucepan full of water and heat to about med-low to medium heat you want the water hot but not boiling.

Here’s what to do!

1. Wash, peal, and chop (nice and small) your fruit! You can use any combo of fruits that fits your fancy. Here is an EASY way to quickly peal fruits like plums, peaches, etc! It’ll save you SO much time in the most time-consuming part of the whole project!

2. Add the lemon juice and coat it all. To keep the fruit from browning. Simple enough

3. Measure out your sweetener. On the blog there gives a very helpful chart for the ratio of what type of sweetener you want to use. Here it is just encase you need to see it! (I used the fruit juice)

Type of jam	Type of pectin to buy	Sweetener
regular	no-sugar or regular	7 cups of sugar
low sugar	no-sugar	4.5 cups of sugar
lower sugar	no-sugar	2 cups sugar and 2 cups Splenda (or about 1/3 that if you use Stevia, which is my preference)
no sugar	no-sugar	4 cups Splenda (or about 1/3 that if you use Stevia, which is my preference)
natural	no-sugar	3 cups fruit juice (grape, peach, apple or mixed)

4. Mix the pectin with 1/4 of the sweetener.

5. Mix fruit with the pectin-sweetener and cook on Med-High heat until comes to a roaring full on boil.

6. Add in the rest of the sweetener and bring it back to a roaring full on boil.

7. LET IT BOIL FOR A FULL MINUTE (this is important so the pectin will set properly)

8. Fill the jars. Leave 1/4 of a in space in the top for expansion.

9. Top them with the nice and hot lids.

10. Boil them in a water bath! Boil for at least 5 minutes, I did 7 for good measure. You shouldn’t need to boil for more than 10 minutes. Make sure the water is fulling boiling the whole time. This will help seal the jars and kill any bacteria in them. Yay for safety!!

11. Carefully remove the hot jars from the water (I used a jar lifter but you can use whatever you have to get them out without burning yourself)

12. place jars on a cooling rack and allow to cool for 24 hours. You’ll hear a POP. That is good news! That’s the jars sealing themselves.

13. Once cooled remove the rings and clean the jars if anything got on them in the process. Store with or without the ring.

14. Store for up to 6 months!! (or eat them right away as I did)

PS the rings and the jars are reusable. The lids not so much.

Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: apricot, canning, jam, jar, jelly, juice, peach, plum, sugar, sugar free.