Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - [NAFEX] making jams and jellies

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
  • To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [NAFEX] making jams and jellies
  • Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2008 10:39:43 -0400

To contrast with Lisa's approach, I never follow any recipe at all. When I started I had too much bad luck with recipes and found my instinct worked better. One thing I would agree however is a recipe can never be doubled, unless you double the surface area you are cooking it down on. I usually cover the whole stove with big frying pans so I can cook down the jam in a thin layer. I use the technique of putting large spoons in the freezer before starting; jam dropped on a frozen spoon quickly sets so you can get immediate feedback. That feedback is critical for me. I also adjust the sugar amount during the cook; I like to have as little sugar as possible, but if the set is progressing slowly or the taste is not sweet enough I add more sugar. If it is going super slow I will add commercial pectin toward the end as well.

I made some jam from Indian Cling peaches last weekend. These peaches had relatively little sugar in them so I added more than I usually do, but they were loaded with pectin and the set was very fast. I had never made peach jam from Indian Cling before and it was quite different from other peaches so it would be hard to have a single recipe work for both Indian Cling as well as regular type peaches. The jam ended up coming out very chunky, more like chutney than your normal jam. I would say these are better pie or tart peaches given how well they hold their shape, but I still do like the chunky jam.

Scott




  • [NAFEX] making jams and jellies, Scott Smith, 09/04/2008

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page