Homemade Plum Jam Recipe - Mom On Timeout (2024)

FAQs

How do you reduce tartness in plum jam? ›

Take a small amount of the (still liquid) jam in a teaspoon, cool and taste it. If it tastes too sour for your liking, add a teaspoon or two more of sugar and continue cooking. Turn the heat down to medium-low and stir the jam continuously for anywhere between 7-12 minutes.

The skins completely broke down during the cooking process into a deliciously sweet jam. The skins also contain a lot of pectin, which helps the jam gel. So here's my advice: leave the skin on the plums. Even if you don't like plum skin, you won't be able to tell!

To make jam, choose plums that have a rich, deep color and skin that is firm but not taut. Just ripe plums are best for jam making—the peel will come off easily; overripe plums will be sticky and will easily split and may not make as tasty jam.

The natural pectin in fruits and vegetables thickens jams. If there isn't enough pectin in the fruit itself and you don't add extra pectin, the result is runny jelly or jam. Additionally, if the fruit is overripe, its pectin levels are lower.

If your dish tastes too sour try to add sweetness—think sugar, honey (it's healthy!), cream or even caramelized onions. You can also dilute the dish (same as you would with a dish with too much salt). As a last resort, add a pinch of baking soda to make the dish more alkaline.

How Do You Neutralize Sour Taste in Food? If a dish is too sour, add a little bit of sugar! Sweetness balances out sour flavors, so if something makes your mouth pucker, a dash of sugar may help soften the blow of the sour food.

Add pectin.

Whisk a tablespoon of powdered pectin (preferably the no-sugar-needed variety) into the pot of cooking jam. Test for thickness and add another tablespoon if needed. Learn More About Pectin: What's the Deal with Pectin?

So if you use pieces of fruit or whole berries, you are actually using less fruit than if it were mashed, or cooked to a mash and then measured, and you will get a firmer jell. Or you may have used more pectin than the recipe called for. For example, if you used Tablespoons of pectin rather than teaspoons.

If, on the other hand, the jam is rock solid, that means you've gone too far and cooked it too long. You can try adding a little water to thin it out, but bear in mind that after overcooking a jam, you can't really get those fresh fruit flavors back.

Homemade fruit preserves can last for up to year or even longer if it is unopened and stored in a cool, dry place, such as a pantry or kitchen cupboard. However the flavour and texture of your jam will start to deteriorate after around 6 months, even if you keep them tightly sealed.

Can I freeze plums to make jam later? ›

Freezing plums is as easy as can be, and the fruit wedges will last up to six months in your freezer. Use your frozen plums to make jam or preserves, add them into smoothies, or eat the wedges straight out of the freezer for a cool treat.

European plums, aka prune plums, are mainly grown to be turned into dried plums. Their thick skins, high sugar content, and dense flesh make them ideal for drying, and best for baking and jam-making.

With a simple lemon juice trick, your homemade jam will achieve your desired thick texture. Preparing jam is about capturing the sweet essence of the fruit while simultaneously cooking it down to the perfect syrupy consistency.

The addition of lemon juice also helps to activate the pectin and set your jam. Slightly unripe fruit contains more pectin and is more acidic than very ripe fruit and will also help to set your jam more easily.

If it's too tart, add more sugar (or honey, or maple syrup). You can add flavorings (spices, vanilla bean, booze, tea, herbs) if you want to zip things up. Or leave it plain, though I often add a pinch of salt to bring out the flavors.

Sweetness: From sugar, honey, fruits or otherwise, sweetness will counteract bitter and sour flavours. It can also be used to cut down the heat of a particularly spicy meal.

How to Make Food Less Acidic. Add a fat such as butter, heavy cream, sour cream, cheese, or olive oil to coat the tongue and physically block some of the acidity from your taste buds. You might also try adding a sweetener such as sugar, honey, or maple syrup.

As you are cooking your Jam add some Lemon juice to it. How much Lemon juice depends on Ph level of your jam and how much you are making. Squeezing the juice from half a lemon should be enough to lower the Ph of one jar of jam from 5 to 4, you will need to check it to ensure you don't get botulism.