Making plum jam

tiredwithtwins

when i have a glut of something, i usually just do a simple internet search for "...... recipes" - its amazing whats out there!

Allexie

If you get sick of preserving - here's a few other things to do with plums, courtesy of St Delia


http://www.deliaonline.com/search/search_results.asp?q=plums

chinagirl

I too, have plum trees groaning under the weight of ripening fruit (ooh, that sounds so romantic).

Usually, we eat a lot, kids take them to school in their lunches, give some away to friends and relatives, and any left, my Mum makes a wicked plum wine, which we all enjoy for months after the harvest.

We have also weighed and bagged them and sold them at car-boot sale, along with our Bramleys. (One year, we had such a large quanity I ended up selling a few crates to our local green grocer.)

henhog

I really recommend Marguerite Patten's Jam, Preserve and Chutney book ( honestly, I don't have shares in the publisher or naything, but it is a good book ). It is only £7.99 full price and it seems to have a recipe for absolutly every type of preserve you can imagine. She also has loads of advice about making preserves so it is ideal for a beginner.
I looked in the index for plum recipes and she has;
Plum and almond cheese
plum and apple chutney
plum and citrus conserve
crystallized plums
notes on freezing plums
plum and greengage jam
plum jam
pickled plums
plum and prune jam
plum spiced chutney.

I can type up a recipe if anyone wants it.

Jnelhams

I make Plum & Blackberry Wine:

Need
6 lb of Ripe Plums
2 lb of Blackberries or another 2 lb of Plums.
2 lb bag of Sugar
Wine Making Yeast (The sell this in Wilkinsons)
Campden Tablets (Wilkinsons)

You need to first wash your Plums, place them in a clean bucket and add enough Cold Water to cover them, add 2 crushed Campden Tablets, cover the bucket tightly with cling film and wait for 2 Days. Next wash the fruit again and stone all the Plums, also wash any Blackberries and leave to soak for a couple of hours adding 1 crushed Campden tablet to them. Put you stoned plums in a clean bucket and mash with a potato masher. Next add the Blackberries, and cover with enough water to just cover the fruit, add 1 teaspoon of yeast sprinkled over the fruit, seal the top tightly with cling film and swirl the bucket around twice a day for a week.

After 1 week strain all the foaming mess into a clean bucket, you should have around 3 Litres of Juice by now, next you need to disolve 1 bag of Sugar in 2 litres of Boiling Water, and add to the Juice. Allow to cool and pour into a Clean Glass DemiJohn (Wilkinsons sell these too), sprinkle a half teaspoon of fresh yeast and add a Rubber bung and Airlock filling this with a little water and half a Campden tablet (you guessed Wilkinsons). Place out of direct sun, in a warm spot (18-24c)

After about 8 hours you will see the airlock bubling, this will continue for around 1-6 months. After which time, the mixture will turn clear like Ribena, gently syphon off the liquid so as not to pick up the sediment and you will have 6 bottles of Plum & Blackberry Wine, allow the bottles to stand in a dark place for a further 6 months and then Drink at which time you will have a wine of about 12% Alcohol content.

Ted_Hutchinson

Bottling plums in syrup is a good way of dealing with a glut and they are then in a form which needs no further treatment. Simply open the bottle and eat. In bottles they don't take up freezer space and don't need defrosting or further cooking so are ready for use.

If you've a load of fruit to deal with you want to get the maximum amount of fruit into each jar so cutting the plums in half stoning then pre-cooking will soften them up to enable more fruit to be packed into each jar.
You don't have to restrict your use of jars to proper preserving jars. Following a suggestion from this form I've experimented with Cookin Sauce bottles and pickle jars without any problems. Providing they are all about the same size and have decent lids they should work.

I would partially cook my plums with sugar and a little water as for stewing then put the hot fruit in jars, put lids on but not tight, turned back so they are sitting on the jar. In the pressure cooker I would slowly raise 1and a half pints of water to low pressure over 3 minutes and then maintain pressure for 1 minute. Reduce pressure slowly over 10 minutes then tighten the lids and leave to cool.
If I'd a batch of several jars to cope with I'd use the water bath method and put the filled jars (as above) in a boiler of warm water, and bring to 190degreesF [size=+1] 87.7 degrees C. [/size]and keep at that temperature for 10 minutes. then remove tighten lids and cool.

Using the quick water bath method gives more flexibility for beginners as the pressure cooker method timing is more crucial and dealing with the hotter jars trickier.

harpo1

:A I tried to bottle them last year - well I covered a jar of plums with sugar & vodka. It didn't go off but it didn't look good enough to actually drink - very murky indeed. I'm going to give the wine & jam a go. thanks guys much appreciated!!!

scuzz

what about a plum crumble to use up some of them?

Chris25

A really simple chutney..........
2lb cooking apples
1lb stoned plums (or tomatoes)
1lb brown sugar
1lb dates
half-pound raisins
2 oz salt
1 pint vinegar
1 large onion
teaspoon of pepper and another of ginger

Boil up chopped onion, apples and plums with vinegar until soft.
Add rest of ingredients and boil for about 40 mins. Then put into jars.

You can also make plum vinegar - very nice with chinese meals or part of a salad dressing.
Simply fill a jar with plums that have been pricked all over with a needle. Top up with white vingar. Leave on sunny windowsill for 3 weeks, shaking daily. After that, store in cupboard for a month, then take out plums, boil to reduce to about half quantity, strain vinegar and bottle.
You could also put in a star-anise if you wanted to but take it out before storing in cupboard if you don't want the flavour to be too spicy.

competitionscafe

Some non preserving ideas for using up plums:

2 sweet and 1 savoury recipe from eat the seasons:
http://www.eattheseasons.co.uk/

* Plum and Hazelnut Crumble
http://www.ivillage.co.uk/food/tools/recipefinder/display_recipe/1,,6302,00.html?

* Pork with Plums
http://www.waitrose.com/food_drink/recipes/RecipeSearch/Recipe/9909050-r02.asp

* Plum and Cinnamon Oat Slices
http://www.delia-online.com/recipes/r_0000001381.asp

If anyone has the Simply the Best cookbook this sounds nice too:
Baked Plums with Dark Rum and Demerara Sugar