Plum Marmalade
When I visited a couple of friends with a garden on Saturday, they chased all of us up their plum tree and then foisted all the plums on us when we went home. The plums were yellow Reine Claude, sweet and delicious. Two kilos of plums was a bit more than I could safely eat, though, so I decided to make marmalade. I'm not a great fan of marmalade or jam (except for a little bit of lingonberry jam every now and again), but home-made jam is a great gift, if you don't completely botch it.
I based my marmalade on a recipe that A (the tree owner) gave me, and one that my grandmother used to make, that my mother read to me on the phone. From A I got the added cinnamon and strong spirits; from my grandmother's recipe I got lemon juice and the method of boiling the plums whole, stones and all, to extract as much pectin as possible. Reine Claude plums are apparantly pretty low in pectin. It would have made a nice jam without added pectin, but since I wanted marmalade I had to add some, so I used a commercial gelling-and-preservative powder.
I made one batch on Sunday, with lemon juice as in my grandmother's recipe, which turned out a little bit too tangy for my taste. I even had to add a drop of (homemade) vanilla extract to round it off. I guess it depends on the plums and whether you skin them first. (I gave one jar to my mother yesterday as a birthday present, and she said she liked it a lot, so I guess it wasn't too bad.) Today I got around to the rest of the plums, so they wouldn't all spoil. I left out the lemon juice (and vanilla) this time, which resulted in a better balance between sweet and tangy. For the spirits, A. had used Slivovic, but since the only suitable strong spirits I had was some dark rum, I opted for replacing some of the white sugar (about a quarter of it) with dark muscovado and demerara sugar to match it. This turned out to be yummy! Since I was going to use a gelling powder that contains preservative, I also went for the lowest amount of sugar.
Here's the recipe version I felt most happy with, in case you were interested, and also for my future reference.
PLUM MARMALADE
makes ca. 800 ml
1 kilo yellow plums
400-600 gr sugar (of which 100 gr dark muscovado and demerara)
½ a stick of ceylon cinnamon (though cassia will work as well)
100 ml dark rum (or other fine spirit)
2 tsp "röd Melatin" (or suitable amount(s) of the gelling/preservative agent(s) of your choice)
Clean, dry, sterilised glass jars
If needed, rinse the plums. Cut them all the way through to the stone and across with a sharp knife, but don't remove the stones. Count them and put them all in a big casserole with a tiny amount of water and the stick of cinnamon. Bring to the boil and cook them softly under a lid, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, for 20-30 minutes or until the plums disintegrate and the stones float to the surface. Fish them out with a skimmer. If the marmalade needs skimming, do that as well. Depending on how much cinnamon you use, and how strong cinnamon flavour you want, you can leave it in until now or remove it earlier. Count the stones to make sure you've removed them all!
Set aside 1 tbsp of the sugar and mix it with the gelling powder. Add the rest of the sugar and boil while stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the mix turns syrupy. Then add the gelling powder mix and boil for another two minutes. (Or whatever your gelling/preservative agent requires).
Last of all, add the 100 ml of dark rum, and let the alcohol boil away before you remove the pot from the heat. Pour the marmalade into hot, sterilised glass jars and lids.
Jars can be sterilised by heating them in the oven to 250° C or by rinsing them in a preservative solution. Lids and rubber gaskets can be boiled in a saucepan for a few minutes. If the jars aren't hot, the marmalade should cool off a bit before it is poured to avoid jars cracking, but hot jars are good, because then they form a vacuum when they cool off. (A tip: silicon-dotted non-slip cotton gloves are great for handling and removing hot glass jars from the oven!)
This entry was originally posted at http://therru.dreamwidth.org/379836.html. Comments are read in either place.
I based my marmalade on a recipe that A (the tree owner) gave me, and one that my grandmother used to make, that my mother read to me on the phone. From A I got the added cinnamon and strong spirits; from my grandmother's recipe I got lemon juice and the method of boiling the plums whole, stones and all, to extract as much pectin as possible. Reine Claude plums are apparantly pretty low in pectin. It would have made a nice jam without added pectin, but since I wanted marmalade I had to add some, so I used a commercial gelling-and-preservative powder.
I made one batch on Sunday, with lemon juice as in my grandmother's recipe, which turned out a little bit too tangy for my taste. I even had to add a drop of (homemade) vanilla extract to round it off. I guess it depends on the plums and whether you skin them first. (I gave one jar to my mother yesterday as a birthday present, and she said she liked it a lot, so I guess it wasn't too bad.) Today I got around to the rest of the plums, so they wouldn't all spoil. I left out the lemon juice (and vanilla) this time, which resulted in a better balance between sweet and tangy. For the spirits, A. had used Slivovic, but since the only suitable strong spirits I had was some dark rum, I opted for replacing some of the white sugar (about a quarter of it) with dark muscovado and demerara sugar to match it. This turned out to be yummy! Since I was going to use a gelling powder that contains preservative, I also went for the lowest amount of sugar.
Here's the recipe version I felt most happy with, in case you were interested, and also for my future reference.
PLUM MARMALADE
makes ca. 800 ml
1 kilo yellow plums
400-600 gr sugar (of which 100 gr dark muscovado and demerara)
½ a stick of ceylon cinnamon (though cassia will work as well)
100 ml dark rum (or other fine spirit)
2 tsp "röd Melatin" (or suitable amount(s) of the gelling/preservative agent(s) of your choice)
Clean, dry, sterilised glass jars
If needed, rinse the plums. Cut them all the way through to the stone and across with a sharp knife, but don't remove the stones. Count them and put them all in a big casserole with a tiny amount of water and the stick of cinnamon. Bring to the boil and cook them softly under a lid, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, for 20-30 minutes or until the plums disintegrate and the stones float to the surface. Fish them out with a skimmer. If the marmalade needs skimming, do that as well. Depending on how much cinnamon you use, and how strong cinnamon flavour you want, you can leave it in until now or remove it earlier. Count the stones to make sure you've removed them all!
Set aside 1 tbsp of the sugar and mix it with the gelling powder. Add the rest of the sugar and boil while stirring until the sugar is dissolved and the mix turns syrupy. Then add the gelling powder mix and boil for another two minutes. (Or whatever your gelling/preservative agent requires).
Last of all, add the 100 ml of dark rum, and let the alcohol boil away before you remove the pot from the heat. Pour the marmalade into hot, sterilised glass jars and lids.
Jars can be sterilised by heating them in the oven to 250° C or by rinsing them in a preservative solution. Lids and rubber gaskets can be boiled in a saucepan for a few minutes. If the jars aren't hot, the marmalade should cool off a bit before it is poured to avoid jars cracking, but hot jars are good, because then they form a vacuum when they cool off. (A tip: silicon-dotted non-slip cotton gloves are great for handling and removing hot glass jars from the oven!)
This entry was originally posted at http://therru.dreamwidth.org/379836.html. Comments are read in either place.