Ferber has separate recipes for apricot and plum jams using vanilla bean, so I decided to combine them. Below is my recipe adapted from Ferber’s fabulous book, Mes Confitures.

1. Halve 2 1b apricots and 1 lb yellow plums and remove the pits.
2. Mix with 4 cups sugar, juice and pulp from one lemon, juice and pulp from 1/2 orange, and some grated rind from each.
3. Split two vanilla beans, scrape out the beans from the pod, and add beans and pod to fruit.
4. Let macerate for one hour (see photo at left).
5. Bring to a simmer, and put in refrigerator overnight.

6. Remove apricot pieces, and bring syrup (with plum pulp and skins) to a strong boil. Keep there for about 10 mins.
7. Add apricot pieces and 1 cup Gewurztraminer wine.
8. Bring back to a strong boil. Keep there for 5 mins.
9. Remove vanilla beans and can.

I kept both the apricot and plum skins in the jam. I didn’t notice the apricot skins at all, but the plum skins separated from the pulp and became chewy candied bits in the jam (which I really liked). The apricot pieces stayed mostly whole (see photo at right). This jam was a little runny since it has no pectin, but it set enough for me. The flavor of this jam is amazing, but I thought it was a bit too sweet. Next week, I’ll try again with less sugar and no wine.

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Red and Black Raspberries

1. Wash berries gently in a sieve.	2. Gently dry berries in a cloth.	3. Mix 2-3c berries with 1/2 cup sugar and pour into zip lock freezer bag.

4. Get as much air out of the freezer bag as possible. I use a straw (or a hollowed-out pen, if necessary) to suck the air out of the bag. Place the straw in the corner of the bag, seal the bag as much as possible, suck out a few times, then quickly pull the straw out and seal the bag. Not as fancy as one of those vacuum sealers, but it does the trick. Write in permanent marker on the bag the amount of fruit and sugar.

Sour Cherries

1. Wash cherries gently in a sieve.	2. Pit cherries (or have husband do so). Careful — cherry juice stains!	3. Mix 2-3c berries with 1/2 cup sugar and pour into zip lock freezer bag. Follow step 4 as above.

Blueberries
1. Wash blueberries in a sieve. Remove stems.
2. Dry in a towel.
3. Place in a single layer on a baking sheet in the freezer.
4. When frozen place in zip lock bags and squeeze out the air.

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I decided to divide up the bounty and make three different kinds of strawberry preserves. All three recipes are adapted from Small-Batch Preserving.

1) Oven-Baked Strawberry Jam with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper (right in photo)
2) Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam (3-day process) (center)
3) Whole Strawberry Preserves with White Wine (left)

Oven-Baked Strawberry Jam with Balsamic Vinegar and Black Pepper
You can find lots of sun-cooked strawberry jam recipes if you search. But, since I live in the urban environment this isn’t very practical for me. This recipe gets a similar result with long baking in a low-temp oven.

1) Mix 5c washed, hulled, and halved berries with 2.5c sugar
2) Let sit, stirring occasionally, for 2 hours.
3) Add 1/8c balsamic vinegar and some ground black pepper. Bring to a boil.
4) Cook 10 mins. — it will foam a lot, just keep stirring, don’t skim.
5) Pour into large (9×12) glass or ceramic baking dish.
6) Bake at 170 degrees for 8-10 hours (or 3 hours if you have a convection oven).

This jam came out the best — flavorful and thick. Because the baking evaporated most of the liquid, the jam turned out well without pectin (though it didn’t “hold” when the jar was turned sideways). Go easy on the ground pepper — a little goes a long way!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Day One, in the evening
1) Wash, hull, and halve 4c strawberries.
2) Finely chop 2 stalks rhubarb (slice rhubarb 2-3 times lengthwise before chopping)
3) Mix berries and rhubarb with 2c sugar. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for 8 hours.
Day Two
4) Add 1/4c lemon juice and bring to boil. Boil 5 mins.
5) Remove from heat, let stand, covered, for 24 hours.
Day Three
6) Bring to boil for 5 mins.
7) Can and process in hot water bath for 5 mins.

This jam tasted great, but never achieved a consistency that I liked. It stayed too syrupy — even though I left it in the fridge for a week between steps 5 and 6 (not intentionally). One idea is to separate the berries from the syrup on day three and boil the syrup until it achieves a gel (a lot longer than 5 mins) and then add the berries before canning. I may try this if the jam doesn’t thicken up in a couple days.

Whole Strawberries Preserved in White Wine
For this preserve, I set aside all the same-sized berries that were well-shaped and blemish-free. I wanted this preserve to look as fabulous as it tastes.
1) Mix 3 c washed and hulled (whole) berries, 2 c sugar, and 3 tbln lemon juice. Let sit, stirring occasionally, for 4 hours.
2) Bring to a boil for 2 min., remove berries with slotted spoon.
3) Add 1/2 pouch liquid pectin and boil until achieves set (about 7 mins).
4) Put berries back in pot and bring back to a boil.
5) Can and process for 5 mins.

I ended up with two half pint jars of preserved berries and one half pint jar of jelly. The jelly set well after a full day, but the syrup around the berries never gelled. The photo to the left shows the jelly gelled at the bottom of the jar (where the berries didn’t reach), but not set when it was surrounding the berries. I’ve never seen this pattern before and am not sure why this happened. Please leave a comment if you have an idea!

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Rhubarb added to any fruit (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry — I’m sure there are others) makes jam that is sweet-sour and adds a slightly fibrous consistency to the gel. So, instead of fruit surrounded by gel, you get fruit interspersed with a smooth rhubarb paste (see the close-up photo below). The jam is thick, but not overly gelatinous. Last weekend, I made raspberry rhubarb. I think it’s my favorite jam yet — even better than my beloved fig jam. Here’s the method I used:
1) Thaw one bag (~ 2c) frozen berries.
2) Chop four stalks rhubarb, and cook with juice from thawed berries (~ 3/4c) for 5 min.
3) Add thawed berries, 1 tsp lime juice, and 1 tsp calcium water (from the Pomona’s pectin box), bring to 185 degrees for 2 mins
4) Mix 1.5 tbln Pomona’s Pecting with 1c sugar, add slowly while stirring
5) Add 1c more sugar slowly while stirring
6) Bring to 185 degrees
7) Can and boil in hot water bath for 5 mins.

Because I am a sour-junky I use a higher rhubarb to berry ratio then many recipes call for, but you can, of course, adjust this to your taste.

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1) Heat the milk to 190 degrees and keep it there for 5 mins. Do not boil. After one of my failures, I talked to the yogurt-maker at my farmers’ market, and he told me that I likely hadn’t kept the milk at a high enough temperature for long enough.

2) Put pot into bowl of cold water, and let milk come down to 110 degrees.

3) Add some plain yogurt. Stir very well. Make sure the yogurt has active cultures. Stonyfield says it does, but their yogurt didn’t work for me. The yogurt from my farmers’ market has been my most successful starter-yogurt.

4) Pour into half-pint jars and cover with lids and rings. Old lids work fine since the yogurt doesn’t need to be vacuum-sealed. Just be sure to keep your old lids separated from your new lids!

5) Put into a pre-heated oven (170 degrees). You need to keep the yogurt warm for a few hours. A gas oven with a pilot light works, or (if you have electric like me) just raise the temp to the lowest allowed every hour or so and turn the oven off. I like to leave it in for about 7 hours, which gets me a thicker yogurt. I use “reduced-fat” milk and it comes out plenty creamy for me (and I’d drink half-and-half if it didn’t kill me).

6) Refrigerate for a few hours, and, of course, add a tablespoon of jam.

My first failure occurred when I put the jars in a closet covered with an electric blanket. The jars accidentally fell over and the yogurt separated. For reasons I’m not clear on, you must make sure the yogurt stays upright while it is fermenting. Does anyone out there know why?

A note on the cost: Plain yogurt costs $0.89 at my Whole Foods for 6 oz. One quart organic milk costs $3.50 and makes 32 oz. of yogurt, saving me $1.25 (and 5 plastic containers).

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The winners:
1) Homemade pectin with 2:3 sugar:fruit ratio
2) Liquid pectin with 1:1 sugar:fruit ratio

The losers:
3) Pomona pectin with 1:3 sugar:fruit ratio (not sweet enough, disliked consistency)
4) Pomona pectin with no sugar (used a little erythritol) (not sweet enough, disliked consistency)
5) powdered pectin with 3:2 sugar:fruit ratio (too sweet and consistency too grainy)
6) fancy storebought brand (too sweet, tasted like apples)

So, I’m happy to know that my homemade pectin was the winner, but it’s a lot of work and the liquid pectin was equally well-liked. Sadly, despite my high hopes, the Pomona pectin was unanimously panned. I’m going to keep experimenting with it, though, because I like the fact that it comes in bulk and allows me to choose my sugar amounts. Clearly, a minimum of 2 parts sugar to 3 parts fruit is necessary for most people’s tastes. I’m also going to try and use less calcium water, since I think this makes the consistency a little too thick and somewhat chalky.

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I’m back in the kitchen after a couple months of renovations that included a new wood countertop, cabinet refacing, and a tin backsplash. It’s still a work in progress, but good enough to get back to the jam-making. While on my hiatus, I also found another jam memoir called Blue Jelly by Debby Bull who apparently used to write for Rolling Stone (so jam-makers can be hip and edgy). The book is a little gem that combines snarky self-aware healing after a big break-up with therapeutic jam-making recipes. Inside you’ll find instructions like …

Combine everything in a sauce pan and cook over low heat, dissolving the sugar while stirring. If you’re really depressed, just the fact that the sugar actually disappears into the fruit seems like a major win. So when it boils like its supposed to, and all you’ve done is turn up the heat, which is the next step, you’re almost having a good day. Now simmer uncovered for about 45 minutes, stirring near the end of the time so stuff doesn’t burn on the bottom and wreck how well things are going.

I want to meet Debby. I think we would be friends.

Today I used my Pomona’s Pectin for the first time, making some low-sugar:fruit (1:3) jam and no-sugar jam (with Erythritol). It’s cooling as I write this, so I’ll have results from the next taste test for you soon!

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I chose three jams to make:
#1 — liquid pectin, fruit to sugar ratio of 2, no added acid
#2 — liquid pectin, fruit to sugar ratio of 1, added acid
#3 — powdered pectin, fruit to sugar ratio of 0.7, added acid

And, the results are…

1) I don’t know what kind of raspberries the Wild Jams folks use, but a fruit to sugar ratio of 2 does not work. It makes raspberry syrup. After waiting 24 hours without a set, I emptied the jars, added sugar to achieve a ratio of 1, added some lemon juice, and boiled it all for 4 minutes. This achieved a perfect set. (and I saved a jar of the syrup to eat over vanilla ice cream!)

2) I can’t figure out why all the liquid pectin recipes say to boil for one minute. I found that I need to boil for 3-4 minutes or the jam doesn’t set. Batch #2 had to be emptied 24 hours later and boiled for 3 mins. After processing, and waiting 24 hours, I achieved a good set. Unlike powdered or homemade pectin, the liquid pectin jams seem to take longer to set. I was convinced I had 5 more jars of syrup until the next day.

3) Powdered pectin makes a lot more foam. See the jars to the left. I should have skimmed the foam before I canned the jam.

4) The more the jam is boiled, the darker it becomes. I noticed significant differences in batches that were re-boiled.

I have a pound of Pomona’s Pectin on the way — this is the pectin that uses calcium to set instead of sugar and acid. So, you can use as much or as little sugar as you’d like. Sounds fabulous to me.

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This week, I’ve been researching options for producing jams commercially. If I want to sell jam at a reasonable price, I can’t keep buying my sugar at Whole Foods and my jars at the local Ace hardware store — I need to go wholesale. After much google-searching, I found a nearby jar company and a nearby bulk organic sugar company — both are in Lancaster, PA so I imagine I’ll be making a trip up to Amish country soon so that I can save on shipping.

By “cold-emailing” a dozen local food producers, I also found a local commercial kitchen whose owner enjoys incubating new food entrepreneurs. I’m going to do a test-run in a few weeks to see how much jam I can produce per hour.

Finally, I read a fabulous and inspiring (and perhaps the only?) jam memoir by a woman who owned a local jam business on Cape Cod (my “home”-Cape!). It has a few recipes, explains some of the ways she scaled up production, and, best of all, shares her reflections on the seasons of and reasons for preserving local fruits.

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1) no pectin, 50% sugar
2) with homemade pectin, 25% sugar
3) with homemade pectin, 25% sugar + honey
4) with homemade pectin, 25% sugar + honey, no hot water bath
5) with homemade pectin, 25% sugar, added cranberries and orange
6) a popular organic store-bought raspberry jam

The winner: Cranberry-Rasberry (#5)
Everyone liked the cranberry orange variety (#5) the best, but that doesn’t tell us much expect that this group liked more complex jams.
The raspberry-only winner: Split decision between #2 and #3
Of the pure rasberry varieties, the group was split between #2 and #3. Some like the “flowery” flavor of the honeyed jam, while others like the “bright” flavor of the low-sugar variety.

The losers: Everyone thought #1 was too sweet, and that #6 was too runny. Variety #4 was generally judged too thick (though one panelist preferred this consistency, and the honey-lovers liked the flavor).

A couple notes:
– Using honey instead of sugar usually results in a softer gel. I replaced half of the sugar with honey, and noticed no significant difference in consistency between #2 and #3.
– I tried to test the effect of less boiling (no water bath, just hot fill seal) on one jar of the honeyed jam. We did find a consistency change (the water bath seemed to reduce the gelling), but couldn’t detect a flavor difference. The honey was a bit overpowering, though, so I might try this test again with just fruit, sugar, and pectin.

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