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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 :-)





Plum on FoodistaPlum


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Comments

  1. DailyChefJanuary 28, 2010 at 10:37 PM

    Oh, how delicious! I used to have a plum tree growing up, but I don't remember ever making jam.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AlessandraJanuary 28, 2010 at 10:45 PM

    I think that it is one of the best jams for making pies and tarts ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. JoJanuary 30, 2010 at 11:00 AM

    I am waiting for my jar ;)!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mary BergfeldJanuary 30, 2010 at 2:19 PM

    How lovely this looks. I forget that your summer and mine are not in sync :-). I'd love to be making jam now. Your photos today are spectacular. You've brought a bit of summer to my kitchen. Have a wonderful day. Mary

    ReplyDelete
  5. AlessandraJanuary 31, 2010 at 7:32 PM

    True Mary, I feel the same when I read blogs from the Northern Hemisphere!

    ReplyDelete

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