Plum Jam

As far as jam goes, does a necterine count as a plum or a peach? Because the recipe for jam for both is very different.

Such a delightful dilemma was raised by making jam with both this morning. Finally all the parts came together and I started making jam.

I decided to combine both the plums and the nectarines and in one batch I even throw in a couple of flavor supreme pluots. Then with all this combination it was clear that the plum side had to be recognized.

The flavor supreme pluots have such an intense red color they really colored up the plum nectarine batch. This batch is bright red.

The plums need an extra cooking stage to incorporate the skin color into the meat. So you cook them for 5 minutes on simmer. Combined, the rest of the fruit also got handled this way too. Its a pretty tasty combination. Plums may be used when they are not as ripe as other fruit since they will have this extra step. The yield is supposed to be 6 cups of jam per batch, but it is always a little discouraging since 6 cups divided into pints does not give you much.

I always us low sugar pectin so that the flavor of the fruit shines through.

Two batches were made this morning and that pretty well consumed the sugar on hand. It takes 4 and a half cups of sugar to make a batch. I was off to Costco to get two ten pound bags of sugar for more batches.

Jammin in Merced Pat