# Plum Good Jam/Butter



## Chief Longwind Of The North (Jan 30, 2016)

I had a 30 oz can of plumbs in my pantry that looked like it needed using.  One of DW's friends had given us a couple cans for some work I helped with.  I opened the can and tried one of the plumbs.  They were edible, but not what I would ever get a hankering for.  So, I had to see if I could turn this ho-hum product into something good.  I came up with the idea of making a jam with them.  It came out like a cross between a jam, and a fruit butter.  I am very satisfied with the results.  Here's the recipe.

1 30 oz. can plumbs
1 tbs. Fruit Pectin
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch ground allspice
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 cups low-call sweetener  (I used Ellendale Organic Sugarless Sugar for this)

Open can and pour the can juice into a one-quart sauce pot.  Remove the pits from the plumbs.  Combine all ingredients into the sauce pan and bring to a medium boil over medium-high heat.  Boil for ten minutes.  Remove from the heat and stir in the pectin until mostly dissolved.  Pour the mixture into a blender and blend on high setting for thirty seconds.  Pour into clean mason jar, put on the lid and let cool for thirty minutes.  Place in fridge and let cool completely.  Enjoy on hot-buttered toast.

The flavor is very nice, subtly sweet with just enough spice to give it a great depth of flavor.  This jam/butter is good enough to make a large batch and can.

Another option for this yummy stuff is to use it as a base for various sauces.  It could easily be made into a barbecue sauce, or Asian plumb sauce.  It's fairly neutral and so could be used in a lot of ways.  Thinned, it would make a good syrup for pancakes or waffles.  It would make a wonderful glaze for a roasted, or barbecued ham, or pork roast.  Add garlic and it would be a good glaze on chicken, pork chops, or lamb.  I could also see this used as a base for a sweet and sour sauce, especially for egg rolls or lumpia.

In flavor, this has some resemblance to a rich, dark apple butter, but different.

If you have cans of plumbs that you don't know what to do with, this is a very good way to use them.

Seeeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


----------



## blissful (Jan 30, 2016)

Great idea Chief LotN! 

I do make a lot of jam (not jellies) and butter (which has no butter in it--so kind of a misnomer).

I pulled out a jar of no pectin strawberry jam last week, to put as a topping to individual 1/2 pint jars of cheese cake. Some jams can be made without pectin if they have natural pectin in them. Generally, less ripe fruit has more pectin than over ripe fruits.

Some of our jams get used in cooking, like you, into sauces, glazes, and bbq sauces. This last year our pear tree made us crazy with so much fruit, so I learned how to make pear butter (like apple butter) using a roaster--so so so much less stirring (no sticking) and it takes long cooking, so I cooked overnight on low until it was thick. (no added pectin)

I've read and used methods of no-pectin jam making and it's not really difficult, just time consuming. I've read how to make pectin from apples but I haven't tried it myself.

I visited a friend, a few years ago in summer. He had a tree that I could reach from the deck and it had some kind of berries on it. I researched it and it was a mulberry tree. So I made some mulberry jam. He'd lived there for years and years and had no idea it was an edible berry, so he was happy about knowing that. You can usually tell if you have a mulberry tree by seeing the berries making a mess of any street or sidewalk they hover over.

Jam making is not just for the summer time. Citrus fruits have pectin and they are in season in the winter. I made a lime/honey marmalade when limes went on sale. I'm all out of orange marmalade, so when I see a good sale on them I may put together a couple year supply of that. When we had low bush cranberries, I'd make a ketchup/meat sauce of them. The berries are better once winter sets in and they hang on the bushes well after the first snows.

I'm not much of a sweet eater, so rarely do I use jams except in cooking. DH on the other hand, has gone crazy for the pear butter and eats it almost daily on his bagel, buttered. I don't know how we lived without it.

Thanks for reminding me to get to the orange marmalade.


----------



## Lance Bushrod (Feb 12, 2016)

It's time to make grapefruit marmalade. I went to the cupboard and discovered I'm out and had to settle for 2012 blackberry which is still good.

BTW, Safeway brand orange marmalade is quite good. 

What do think the shelf life is on jam products a person home cans?


----------



## Chief Longwind Of The North (Feb 12, 2016)

Lance Bushrod said:


> It's time to make grapefruit marmalade. I went to the cupboard and discovered I'm out and had to settle for 2012 blackberry which is still good.
> 
> BTW, Safeway brand orange marmalade is quite good.
> 
> What do think the shelf life is on jam products a person home cans?



I'm sure their are USDA Guidelines available on line that can give you shelf life.  Personally, I've had home-canned veggies and jams that were perfectly edible, and great tasting that were well over a year old.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


----------



## Chief Longwind Of The North (Feb 12, 2016)

Lance Bushrod said:


> It's time to make grapefruit marmalade. I went to the cupboard and discovered I'm out and had to settle for 2012 blackberry which is still good.
> 
> BTW, Safeway brand orange marmalade is quite good.
> 
> What do think the shelf life is on jam products a person home cans?



I'm sure their are USDA Guidelines available on line that can give you shelf life.  Personally, I've had home-canned veggies and jams that were perfectly edible, and great tasting that were well over a year old.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North


----------



## Addie (Feb 14, 2016)

Chief Longwind Of The North said:


> I'm sure their are USDA Guidelines available on line that can give you shelf life.  Personally, I've had home-canned veggies and jams that were perfectly edible, and great tasting that were well over a year old.
> 
> Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North



Google the USDA info for the Ball Blue Book for canning. You can down load the Blue Book onto your computer to Acrobat for free.


----------



## GotGarlic (Feb 14, 2016)

The USDA and the Ball canning supply company are not related. 

Here is reliable canning information:

http://nchfp.uga.edu

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html

http://www.freshpreserving.com


----------

