Apricot Plum Jam with Orange Pectin

Before full-on pantry raiding happens, the big freezer clean-out must occur. That is to say, that all the goodies in the freezer have to be canned or eaten. Particularly before a shipment of forty pounds of local chicken meat comes to roost. I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I still had two big bags of apricots and plums from last fall. Instead of doing small batches, I took them out in one fell swoop by combining the two. I feel that apricots and plums go incredibly well together. And because I had a jar of orange pectin in the freezer too, I figured I'd make the jam with that.

Apricots don't have much by way of pectin, but they have a nice level of acidity. Plums vary on pectin, and I've read a lot of varying reports on that. I think it's safe to say that if you have a sweet plum, say the black ones, you don't have a lot of pectin. I was working with a tart but sweet Santa Rosa, which are just a gorgeous pinky-peach color. I didn't want the orange pectin to overpower the flavor of the fruit, so I used much less than the ratio of the jelly I made with orange pectin, hence, it wasn't as firm.

This jam took forever to jell. It was sheeting like mad, however, not quite at the wrinkle stage, but I pulled it because it seemed to be overcooking and the flavor was changing from that fresh fruit stage to a more sugared fruit stage. After sitting, it still is a soft set but holds together nicely on toast. It's a real soft spread, as they say. It's a gorgeous carnelian color, and although sweet--even though the sugar ratio is quite low--it retained its punchy acidity, thanks to the fruit.

I thought about these measurements for a while and I'm still not entirely sure of them. I didn't add lemon juice, because the pectin has a bunch in it. I think if you are looking for a firmer set, you might want to have equal amounts pectin to fruit, so I should have had eight cups. That would have been too much for my pot. Next time I might make a much smaller batch.

4 cups plums, halved and drupe removed

4 cups apricots, halved and, or you can say, pits removed

4 cups of sugar

2 cups of orange pectin

Bring all to a boil. How long it will take? Who knows. I pulled this at about 219 degrees? I leave that up to you, mon frere. Process in hot jars for ten minutes.

Strawberry and Orange Pectin Jelly

Awhile back, during the citrus craze of winter, I became obsessed with the pectin found naturally in citrus. I then recalled the fall and its concurrent obsession with the pectin content in apples, and how one can utilize that pectin to make jams and jellies set instead of purchased pectin. I wondered if a person can do the same with citrus. Of course, I realized that apples are the perfect vehicle for pectin, in that they won't overpower the other fruit or fruits you want to work with. It's a very friendly fruit and goes with a bunch of other equally friendly fruits. Citrus is a little bolder, to say the least, and wants the spotlight. Or at least to get a stand out supporting role. And there's the bitterness. But still, I was curious.

I soon found this gem of a recipe that uses the white pith to make a pectin stock. I dutifully began to save all the white bits of any citrus I used. This I dub "stem to blossom end" jelly-making, in a nod to the snout to tail ethos of cooking. I saved pits, some peels and ends, and every time I juiced a citrus I would scrape off the innards and save the peels for candying, depositing the white parts to the freezer bag of pith. Pithy? Indeed. Pity? Non! Quite the contrary. I felt very resourceful, and, in using the whole fruit, I felt I was appreciating it's whole being.

Finally, the other day, I forced myself to take stock of the freezer and use up the stuff I'd been hoarding. Number one on the list was the bag of citrus bits. A whopping 2 1/2 pounds had been culled! The recipes I was looking at asked for a bit less, so I upped the numbers and hoped for the best. Here's the online version that I found on a page of GardenWeb's harvest forum, a great place for interesting info if you can stand your eyes bleeding from scanning through all the comments.

Recipe adapted slightly. This yielded four cups of liquid. I froze two cups and used the other two in the following jelly recipe, also found on the above link.

2 1/2 pounds of white pith of citrus fruits

1 cup lemon juice

9 cups of water

Chop up all the pith in a processor, so they are uniformly pea-sized. Add liquids to pith in a pot (I'll let that joke pass by) and let sit overnight. In the morning bring it all to a boil. Let boil ten minutes. Cool and strain. The directions say you may process it for ten minutes, or freeze. I chose to freeze half and use the rest in this jelly. (Note the recipe is from 1931. I don't think processing is a problem, but that's me, and I'm no pro. Just so we're clear on that.)

Strawberry and Orange Pectin Jelly

2 cups orange pectin

2 cups strawberry puree

2 cups sugar

Boil until jelling stage of 220 degrees. Ladle into hot jars and seal. Process in boiling water bath for ten minutes. (Again, on processing, I opted to do so, but this is a recipe from 1931.)

I will admit that I used some inferior, store-bought strawberry puree to use in this recipe. I didn't want wait for strawberry season, and didn't want to spend much in case this was a bust. The puree had "natural flavorings" in it, so the strawberry scent was pretty intense, and therefore stood strong against the orange pectin. There's a definite orange taste to the jelly, and a slight but noticeable bitter bite. But it's not overpowering at all. The set is firm and jammy, and it's not crystal clear even though I strained the pectin twice. The puree was dark and opaque, admittedly. I wonder if I stuck to pith only, or left out the pits, or peels, what the outcome would be. I also wonder how it would work with other fruits. There's a bunch of experiments here, ripe for the taking, if you'll pardon me, and I think it would be worth your while if 1.) you had access to great local citrus or 2.) you do a lot of supreming of citrus fruit. I qualify for neither, at least until next winter, but if you try this, or have done so already, let me know how it comes out (or came out). And make it pithy, would you?