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Who makes jam or jelly? - Page 2

post #31 of 37
11/15/10 at 10:53am

@ Worldcook - an idea for making pear preserves that have some body.  Instead of processing your pears like an applesauce, try this.  Peel and core pears.  On your food processor, insert a "fine grate" disc.  Send your pears down the feed tube and let the processor create a fine shred pear.  Toss the shredded pears in a nonreactive pot with a 1/4 cup lemon juice for every 8 cups pears.  The lemon not only helps the pH value, but heigthens the pear flavor.  Sweeten as you will. 

 

Just an idea.  It can help give the preserve a bit more body while keeping the sugar low.  Also, adding a little cinnamon can fool the palate into believing it is tasting something quite sweet.  I think pears and cinnamon are divine, but then again I put cinnamon in my chili, my spag sauce, my hot chocolate - I'd put it in a pot roast if I remembered to!! lol!

 

Best of luck!

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post #32 of 37
3/12/11 at 12:16am

Do you ever make no sweetener fruit spread? I hear you need a special kind of pectin. Is that true? I would like to make a large batch and can it but I would like it to be viscous enough to spread.

 

David from Rowland Heights CA

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post #33 of 37
3/12/11 at 6:55am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by goldendd View Post

Do you ever make no sweetener fruit spread? I hear you need a special kind of pectin. Is that true? I would like to make a large batch and can it but I would like it to be viscous enough to spread.

 

David from Rowland Heights CA


Do you mean some sort of unsweetened jam?

I would make that with agar-agar, it's no pectine but vegetal gelatine from seaweed.

Very tricky to dose exactly. 1 gram of agar-agar is more than enough to get watery mixes solid.

 

I suggest to make a try-out on a small batch. Clean and mix fruit. BTW, you can use only juice for this like applejuice! Simply bring the fruit to the boil, add agar-agar and let boil for a few seconds. That's it. It will become quite solid, but it can be blend or mixed again to turn it into a spreadable paste.
 

 

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post #34 of 37
3/27/11 at 7:21am

I too have been preserving, making jams and only a few jellies for years. Raspberry is a summer staple and the easiest it almost makes itself. Others are more work, I make crabapple pomegrante jelly;  peach almond jam; clementine marmalade and some vegetable preserves as well.  Each year I seem to make less though as I age.

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post #35 of 37
4/3/11 at 1:47pm

Just read your thread about jellies and jams.  Making jams and bottling fruit and vegetables are BIG where I live.   They also turn their jam pots upside down too.  I have bottled our black and red cherries, plums and peaches.  They lasted really well.  We use a steralisatuer in the garden and this year we are going to try using Eau - de Vie instead of water. 

 

I have some home grown recurrants in my freezer which I plan to make some redcurrant jelly ( love it with roasted lamb - its a Brit thing)  Do I need to top and tail them before cooking them?

 

Best regards

Normandie

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post #36 of 37
4/4/11 at 4:28am
Thread Starter 

Quote Normandie; I have some home grown recurrants in my freezer which I plan to make some redcurrant jelly ( love it with roasted lamb - its a Brit thing)  Do I need to top and tail them before cooking them? 

 

Each year I collect a lot of elderberries. A little similar to redcurrants in making jam or jelly. This may help, although there might be other methods.

 

I wash the fruit and take the berries from their stalks, which goes easy, just takes a lot of time. Then I cook them without sugar until soft, let cool a while and then pass them through a food mill using the finest sieve. All seeds etc. remain in the foodmill.

Please note that the fruit is cooked with no sugar in this stage, but I add the juice of 1/2 lemon per liter of juice and store the mixture away for a whole night. I always add lemonjuice in jams/jellies. It improves the taste dramatically, even when using sour fruits! Also helps the pectine to do it's work.

 

Only the next morning I proceed in my odd but very effective way;

- heat the oven at 110°C - put the sugar in an oventray and cover with an ovenplate - put in the lower part of the oven

- wash jars and put still wet, upward in the oven on another ovenplate- the jars dry and sterilize during the time you need to cook the jam. Also, pouring boiling hot jam in it will never cause them to break. One thing; don't put the lids in the oven!!

- heat the fruit gently to the boiling point

- carefully (very hot) take the sugar from the oven and pour in the fruit. This will bring the whole mixture to a boil very quickly! And strangely the jam will produce almost no scum at all.

- when the jam is done, immediately take the hot jars out of the oven, a few at a time, immediately fill with boiling hot jam, cover and put upside down on their lid.

- leave on their heads untill you can handle them, don't leave to cool entirely on their head.

 

I now still have a small batch of elderberry jam that's... 2 years old, still in perfect shape and delicious. I notice that the jars are very tightly closed the way I make them. Takes a lot of force to open them.

 

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post #37 of 37
4/4/11 at 2:28pm

I always top n tail my redcurrants - maybe because that's the way my Mum and Granny started the process.

 

I make redcurrant jellies and sauce to go with venison..    great with collops!

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