Quarantine project: fruit preserves

So this quarantine I’ve had a lot of time on my hands so I thought I’d finally do something with all the fruit I get around this time of year. Living in California, many people have fruit trees as do I and figuring out what to do with the tons of plums in your backyard once you’re sick of eating them leads to one conclusion. Make jam.

Before quarantine I never really had the time to spend hours in front of the stove cooking down fruit but I thought I’d try it out. Most of the preserves I’ve made follow a pretty simple recipe if anyone else is looking to make their own jam.

Per ~2 pounds of fruit:

• If your fruit is very sweet, approx 3 cups sugar or 2 cups honey. If it’s more sour/less sweet, you can increase the sugar/honey as much as you’d like or leave it so you get a little tartness.

• about 3 lemons worth of lemon juice

1. Dump the sugar into a large pot and mix with lemon juice.
2. If you’re making a plum/nectarine/peach etc jam I tend to peel off the skin. After cutting them up into pieces put the fruit into a large pot.
3. Mix the fruit into the lemon sugar mix and thoroughly coat, let sit for about 1 hour
4. Set a small dish in the freezer
5. After an hour has passed bring the fruit mix to a rolling boil and skim the foam off the top.
6. Lower the temp to med/low and continually stir. The closer the jam is to being done the easier it will burn.
7. Once the mix seems to have condensed to about a third of what it was originally and has thickened considerably, take the dish out the freezer and place a small drop of the jam on it to show you the true texture of the jam.
8. Continue cooking until satisfied with consistency
9. When jarring jam, make sure jars are very clean and very dry. I put jam in about 3/4 and then place upside down to encourage sealing. I will also place an ice cube on the upturned bottom to help create a temp difference and create a small vacuum.
10. I let the jars sit until they are room temp and put in the fridge but if they’re sealed properly you could just leave them in the cupboard.

bon appetit