Plum Jam

In my mountains of moving boxes are my recipe books that I specifically want for plum jam recipes. Our landlord brought around a box of plums (a few kilos worth), and I am thinking we won't eat them all, so I should make jam!

Only problem is, I've never made jam before. Been reading googled recipes, some say to peel and chop the fruit, discard stones, keep stones and fish them out with a slotted spoon, and seemingly put the fruit in uncut? Really? What am i supposed to do?

They are beautiful fruit, so I don't want to nuff it up. I am hoping to give some jam back to the landlord, and just hate failing cooking in general.

Lastly, the skins are a purple/green, and the flesh is dark red, like red wine. What kind ofplums are they?

Thank you!

Subbing, my tree is laden and the kids love plum jam but I've never made it.

Oooh, I need to do this too! Loads of dark purple plums in our tree :)

:bump: Anyone?

Thanks Nickle and Patti, hoping someone can give some info. In the meantime, I will continue to look for these two books! And possibly through some others. :)

DH makes jam by cutting in half to remove stone and tossing in pot with weight for weight sugar and fruit (so 1kg fruit = 1 kg sugar) can't help with much more than that at the moment.
I think he puts a little water in but could be wrong. I know he lets it simmer until cooked.

Nope, no extra water. When I make apricot jam, I slice the fruit (unless you like it really chunky then just cut in half). Half equal amounts of sugar to fruit and put in a large bowl overnight - the sugar will go syrupy. Then the next day you cook it down for several hours until it 'sets', which for me took about 2 hours with 4kg fruit/sugar. Then you pop into hot jars and seal with wax and a lid (then you don't have to worry about the lids sealing properly as the wax seals it. Or Maggie beer suggests using clean jars and then standing the jar on it's lid while it cools. You need to get the kernel out of the seed and put the kernel in with the jam while it cooks.

Leckert; what you wrote is pretty much the majority of what I have been reading.

Trillian; what is the purpose of turning the jars upside down to cool? And same for putting the kernals into the jam please. Are you suggesting to put the kernals from all of the stones, or less?

I have not found the two books I was looking for (bummer, because one is a library book!), but did look in my farmhouse cookbook, which has an excellent, well described recipe. A lot of the other recipes (from google) needed lemon juice (for pectin I think), this one just uses fruit and sugar. And a bit of water. After I take the kids to kinder and school tomorrow, I need to get some more jars from the op shop (because all I have now are a few baby food jars), and some paraffin. Question about the paraffin, I can just melt that in a saucepan, right? Non stick, or doesn't matter?

You only need about 6 kernels. It's to enhance the natural flavour of it. I think she tips the jars upside down to help the hot jam create a seal in the jar lid. She doesn't sterilise them either, just makes sure that they are clean. I just work on the principle hot jam into hot jars. The parafin will stick and you don't melt it over direct heat - you need to use a double boiler. I have a small metal bowl that I use and you drain off the excess wax before washing the bowl out while it's still hot - otherwise its a huge PITA to clean.

Thank you Trillian. And sorry, kernels, not kernals. :redface: Is six kernels enough for a kilo of fruit? Cool, I'm glad she doesn't sterilise, but yes, I will be putting hot jam into hot jars. It's only logical! I think I will do the upside down jar thing, not the paraffin wax, due to the mess factor.

i used six kernels per two kg of fruit :

Have made jam! Well, it kinda looks like jam. :) I think I may have overdone it. It's not burned, but maybe just overcooked, I didn't realise it would go so dark. It tastes really good warm, so will have to wait until the morning to try it for real, on some toast! Nom! I have a few more kilos of fruit to use, so will be doing it all again tomorrow! I think I will try a different method, just out of interest.

Same recipe as Trillian.

The kernels are for the pectin release which helps the jam set :)

Lemon pips can also help.

Sounds yum Netix

Plum jam will go really dark - it's completely different to the store bought jam so don't worry if it looks different to that. I'm sure it will be fine.

It is too thick. And when I say thick, I mean, THICK. And tastes a bit, um toffee-ish? Useable, but spread perhaps a little more sparingly due to its strong taste. Might have to put some in some cakes or somethng!