What to do with tons of plums including a great plum jam

I've been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks which means that probably all your plums will have fallen but you may still be able to find some in the shops. And, if not, hopefully it will be useful for next year.

A fortnight ago we spent a weekend with some old friends (old as in we've had them for a long time not that they're ancient) who had a plum tree that was absolutely laden with fruit.

We'd thought of doing a bit of preserving but ended up having to think of other ways we could bring plums into the day's eating which included supper for nine.

This is what we made:

Roast plum relish and salsa

A plum salsa from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Guardian column. We didn't have any lime so I used lemon. This was really good - I'd definitely make it again. We had it with chicken but it would be even better with lamb.

A roast plum and onion relish to go with the cheeseboard. Just because I wanted to see how it would turn out if you roasted plums. Slightly dull is the answer. Don't bother.

Baked amaretti plums from a Woman and Home recipe for which we used an ancient (and on this occasion I do mean really old) bottle of cream sherry rather than the recommended marsala. Also delicious and incredibly easy.

A spiced plum chutney from the Woman and Home site. We didn't have any raisins so we used a mixture of dried cherries and cranberries. It tasted pretty good when we'd finished but it needs to mature another couple of weeks.

And this incredibly good (though I say so myself) plum jam which I invented largely to compensate for the plums' lack of flavour. The pomegranate molasses made it so don't leave it out and it needs the cinnamon too. Note there's far less sugar than in most recipes so it'll be a bit runny but add more if you want.

Plum and pomegranate jam
Makes about 4 x 400g jars

1 kg plums
250g preserving sugar
300g granulated sugar
3 tbsp pomegranate molasses
6-8 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100ml water

Halve the plums, twist and remove the stones, then cut into 2 or 3 pieces. Place in a large saucepan or preserving pan with the sugars, pomegranate molasses, cardamom pods, cinnamon and water. Place over a very low heat until the sugars have completely dissolved then bring to the boil and boil hard for about 15 minutes until the jam is set. Skim off any scum, fish out the cardamom pods, rest the jam for 10 minutes then pot into hot, sterilised jars*.

* If you don't know how to sterilise jars there's a useful post here.

Apricot and cardamom jam

I can't believe I've got to the age I have (don't ask!) without ever having made a pot of jam. Marmalade, yes, as regulars may recall from this post but jam and chutney, never. Which makes no sense considering the cost of good preserves these days - about £3.50-4 a small jar in farmers' markets and posh delis.

I decided this year was going to be the year to break my duck and lugged down a large bag of jars and an armful of preserving books to our house in the south of France. After all fruit and veg is cheap down here so it sounded like a good holiday project.

It's actually been so hot for the last few days I couldn't face it but yesterday I made my first batch of apricot jam (my favourite) based on a recipe in my friend, cookery writer Thane Prince's Jams and Chutneys. Needless to say I couldn't resist going off-piste a little - I like my jam slightly less sweet than most and had this hunch that cardamom would be a great addition (it is!) but Thane's recipe gave me an excellent basis to work on.

Apricot and cardamom jam
Makes about 4 x 400g jars

I kg of apricots (not over-ripe which shouldn't be a problem in the UK as they never are)
Juice of 1-1 1/2 lemons (about 4-5 tbsp)
8 green cardamom pods, lightly crushed
900g jam sugar (with added pectin. If you like your jam tart you might even be able to do with a little less)

You will also need 4-5 350g-400g sterilised jam jars and a cold saucer to test the set

Wash the apricots and quarter or halve them depending on how large they are. Put in a large saucepan or preserving pan with the lemon juice, crushed cardamoms and 400ml water and bring slowly to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes until the apricots are soft but still retaining their shape, skimming off any scum (that sounds horrible doesn't it? Let's call it froth) that appears on the surface.

Turn off the heat and tip in the sugar and gently stir then leave the pan for a couple of minutes off the heat for the sugar to dissolve. Gradually back to the boil and boil hard for 5 minutes or so until the jam looks like setting, skimming off the scum (sorry, froth) as you go. Take the pan off the heat and spoon a little onto your chilled saucer. Leave it a minute then run your finger through it. If it's set it should crinkle slightly. If not boil (the jam, not your finger) for 3-4 minutes more.

Once the jam is set take off the heat. Warm the jars in a moderate oven. Stir the jam then ladle or pour into the hot jars. Seal with the lids or a cellophane jam jar cover, wiping the outside of the jar with a damp cloth. Label once cool. Slather over baguette and French butter. Drool.

Just a wee taster to make sure it's OK ...

Cost? Apricots around €2.60 a kilo, sugar 1.28€ a kilo bag (I used slightly less), lemon about .30€ and cardamoms I already had so roughly 1€ (86p) a jar for the most heavenly scented apricot jam you can imagine. Can't wait to make more.

Are you also a novice or a regular jam maker and what are your favourite jams?

How to make the best marmalade you’ve ever tasted

I’m not a great one for ‘the perfect this’ or ‘the perfect that’ in recipes but if you’re a marmalade aficionado I promise you this is as good as it gets. Intensely fruity, thick and sharply flavoured.

OK, I’m biased. It was my mum’s recipe so it carries a bit of emotional baggage. I can remember the kitchen filling up with a warm, comforting marmaladey fug and sitting alongside her as a child slicing the oranges. She wasn’t a wonderful cook but this was her pièce de resistance. I still have the original written neatly in blue ink on a piece of Basildon Bond notepaper.

I’d got out of the habit of making it but she died just after Christmas so I wanted to make it in memory of those companionable times. Besides seville oranges are in season so now’s the moment.

First a few practicalities to keep down the cost because you can of course buy marmalade much, much more cheaply than it will cost you to make it. But it won’t taste anything like as good.

* Assuming you don’t have a preserving pan you need a large saucepan. A large stainless steel pasta pan is perfect. The bottom of a pressure cooker will do.

* You need jars. You can buy them from sites like Jam Jar Shop but that does add to the cost so beg or borrow some from neighbours. Not pickle or chutney jars in which the smell of the previous contents tends to linger. The jars need to be as clean as possible. Old recipes suggest sterilising them by putting them in a hot oven but I find a recent run through the dishwasher will do the trick.

* You need a muslin square or something to act as a muslin bag (I used a J Cloth). See why below. Oh, and some fine string

* You need waxed paper discs if you’re to keep the marmalade any length of time. And labels. Again from a specialist like Lakeland or the Jam Jar Shop.

* You need a couple of saucers in the fridge to test the set

* and finally, and most importantly, you need seville oranges, unwaxed lemons and sugar in the following quantities. The original recipe states preserving sugar but this is now so hard to get and twice as expensive as granulated so I would (and did) use that. No problem.

1.35 kg (3lb) Seville oranges, preferably organic
1 large or 2 small lemons, preferably unwaxed
1.7-1.8kg (3 3/4-4lb) granulated sugar

This makes about 7-8 400g jars but your jars will probably be all shapes and sizes and the quantity always turns out different depending how long you boil the marmalade so make sure you have slightly more than you need.

Wash and scrub the oranges and lemons with a vegetable brush and put them whole into a large pan with 1.3 litres (2 1/4 pints) of cold water.


Cover the pan with a lid or a large sheet of foil and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, turning them occasionally until they are soft enough for you to pierce the skins with the end of a teaspoon. (You can probably remove the lemons after an hour and the oranges progressively after that). The kitchen will smell heavenly.


Remove the fruit and measure the remaining liquid. If there is less than 1.1 litres (just under 2 pints) add enough fresh water to bring it up to that level and return to the pan.

Cut the fruit into quarters, scoop out the pulp and separate out the pips. Cut the skins into small thick slices and add along with the pulp to the pan of water. (I've since discovered that leaving the fruit to soak in the water for an hour improves the set.)



Tie up the pips in a piece of muslin (there’s a useful video here) and hang it over the handle of the pan and into the cut up fruit. This might seem a bit of a faff but the extra pulp and pectin helps the marmalade to set.

Put the sugar in a warming drawer or very low oven to warm up. Bring the fruit up to boiling point then remove the bag of pips and squeeze and scrape the outside of the bag to release any remaining pulp. Add the warm sugar to the fruit and leave over a low heat, stirring occasionally until dissolved.


Bring back to the boil and boil the marmalade for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent it sticking. Skim off the thick yellowish foam that forms round the edges from time to time.

Test a little on a chilled saucer after 25 minutes to see if it’s set. It should crinkle when you push it with your finger. If it doesn’t continue boiling it until it does. As the marmalade reaches setting point it will darken and grow thicker.



Once the marmalade has reached setting point, remove from the heat, skim off any remaining scum and allow to cool for about half an hour.

Warm your jars if they’re not already sitting in the dishwasher and ladle or pour the marmalade into them (I find a small jug is easiest for this). Cover with a disc of waxed paper, if using, and seal with screw top lids or clear covers. Wipe any splashes off the side of the jars while they’re still warm.

Leave until cold before labelling otherwise the labels won’t stick.


Feel smug and happy.

You can of course cut the amount of work involved by mincing the peel but I like proper looking chunks in my marmalade. Just get someone to sit alongside you as you do it. It’s a nice thing to do with your kids, a mum, gran or sister or a friend. Actually my husband helped me with this batch while we listened to Bob Marley. Good marmalade music.

Oh, and a final tip. You can freeze seville oranges successfully if you haven’t time to make all your marmalade in one go or run out of jars. Just wash and dry them before you freeze them, use them from frozen and increase the boiling time until they’re cooked through.

Is this how you make your marmalade or do you reckon you have a better version?

Swapcrop - trading fruit for jam

Swapcrop is the latest in a series of initiatives encouraging us all to be more community minded and gain something in the process. (Other examples being Landshare and Freecycle). The basic idea is that people who grow more veg or fruit than they know what to do with should make it available to keen jam and chutney-makers who don’t have a garden or allotment in return for a few jars.

The idea comes from the newly formed Guild of Jam and Preserve Makers whose mission is to ‘promote and encourage jam and preserve making' and to provide a forum for jam makers to swop tips. It’s been set up by Rosemary Jameson, founder of the incredibly useful Jam Jar Shop which provides all kinds of jam-making supplies. Pam Corbin who wrote the excellent River Cottage handbook on Preserves is the president.

Seems like there’s a bit of a jam revival going on at the moment. The WI is holding its first Real Jam Festival at Denman College in Oxfordshire from the 20th-21st of November which sounds like a good old-fashioned village fête with competitions, demonstrations, fresh produce stalls and ‘refreshments’ (when did you last hear that word?). I like some of the tongue-in-cheek categories which include 'Jam in the Public Eye' for celebs and 'people of high office e.g. MPs and archbishops', 'Man Made Jam' (for men) and Children’s Jam.

And then there’s a return of the National Trust’s Chutfest, a two day event at Barrington Court in Somerset on October 2nd and 3rd where jam and chutney makers can swop their produce - and others can buy it. Their categories are rather more conventional though the idea of one devoted specifically to rhubarb and ginger chutney has an endearingly eccentric ring to it.

What I like about both these enterprises is the element of self-help - the barter and the swapping. Something that's always gone on in the country on an informal basis but which can benefit us townies too.


Do you make your own jams and chutneys or do you let your produce go to rot? I have to confess we lived for years in a house with several apple trees and never managed to eat our way through them all. Much to the disapproval of my mum who patiently used to wrap them in newspaper and store them in the garage whenever she came to stay - often to find them rotting away several months later. I still feel guilty when I think of it.