Sunday, September 9, 2012

Plum Job

"This jam is made by groovy people and fruit that agreed to be in the jam in the first place."  -Eddie Izzard

There is a fine line between purposeful procrastination, as in waiting for the Italian prunes to ripen and swell, and foolish laziness.

It has been a full year since we last picked plums from our three trees.  Last year, many bags were gathered and some fruit was made into terrific jam by our friend Ruth.  Lots of fruit wound up in the compost bin.  This year, I eyed the trees to gauge the ripeness of the fruit.  Wait too long and the plums start to soften and ferment but still yield a full mouthful of sweet pulp.  Wait too long and the raccoons will clean you out of the choicest fruit.

We wound up with a bushel of plums.  Our daughter chowed them like candy but still there was a surplus.  The excess plums were pitted.  Riper ones are easier to pit with amber flesh whereas the firmer fruit had tart flavor with green flesh.  The plums were cooked with a little water to not quite a simmer.  Eventually the skins slough off giving the stewed fruit a deep purple color. 

 
An equal volume of sugar (plus a pinch of pectin and a dash of almond extract) was added and the mixture was brought to a rapid boil for ten minutes to reach a "setting point."  The jam doubled in volume during the boil so it was a good thing we used a large stock pot.  The hot jam was put into sanitized jars, lids added and voila, plum jam.  Plum jam goodness.


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