In the oeuvre of jam-making, we have the classics: strawberry, blueberry, grape, marmalade, and so on. And while these blue-chip jams are always crowd-pleasers, one should never get stuck in a fruity rut, but instead venture forth into new ingredients and new flavor combinations destined to become your new favorite spreads on bread.
Head into the kitchen with your head held high. Cut your culinary chops on a carrot almond jam, stir up a classic apricot jam, channel your inner Spaniard with quince paste, and start dunking the entire contents of your refrigerator into addictive plum catsup. And the firm, sliceable fruit cheese here will also keep your dairy bin in action.
Remember that good jam starts with good fruit: never use overripe fruit or anything not perfect enough to eat out of hand. March to the farmers’ market and scope out what’s good right now. Your jam pot awaits.
This jam is an extension of a failed recipe for Passover carrot candy from an ancient cookbook put out by a home for the aged in Worcester, Massachusetts. I’ve abandoned ship on making the candy, but this jam is an unusual and sweet treat unto itself. I also dig this one because all of the produce isn’t super seasonally dependent. Not only will this add veggie power to your breakfast toast, but it’s fah-bu-lous mixed with cream cheese as a frosting for carrot cake. If you can’t find tamari almonds, just roasted and salted ones will work.
Makes about 4 cups (2 pints)
TIME COMMITMENT About 2 hours
1½ pounds carrots, trimmed, peeled, and shredded (about 4¼ cups)
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
2½ cups sugar
½ cup water
½ cup chopped tamari almonds
1 thin-skinned orange
1 lemon
INSTRUCTIONS Combine the carrots, ginger, sugar, and water in a large Dutch oven. In a food processor, grind the nuts and add them to the pot. Wash the orange and lemon and cut them into quarters. Chop them—seeds, skins, and all—in the food processor, and then stir them into the pot as well.
Put the pot over medium heat, cover, and let it come to a boil. Stir, turn the heat to medium-low, cover again, and let simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, allowing the carrots to get tender.
HOW TO STORE IT Spoon the jam into clean jars and refrigerate for up to 3 months. Or spoon into sterilized canning jars, packing very tightly to eliminate the air bubbles inside (you can also stick a chopstick or long skewer into the jar to pop the bubbles before canning). Process for 15 minutes (review the canning instructions). This will keep for up to 1 year on the shelf.
A little citrus can go a long way in jam-making—it both brightens sweet fruit flavors and helps thicken fruit-and-sugar mixtures. This lovely summer jam is not overly sweet, and it shows off the apricots’ best attributes. Use thick-skinned oranges like navels or Valencias.
Makes about 7 cups (3½ pints)
TIME COMMITMENT About 1½ hours
2½ pounds apricots, pitted and sliced lengthwise
1 cup minced orange peel (from about 2 large oranges)
4 cups sugar
Juice of one lemon
3 cups Apple Pectin
INSTRUCTIONS Place a small plate in the freezer.
Combine the apricots, orange peel, sugar, and lemon juice in a large Dutch oven and let macerate for at least 1 hour to extract the juice from the fruit.
Cover the pot and bring the fruit mixture to a rapid boil over medium-high heat. Remove the cover and stir often for 5 minutes, to keep the temperature even and keep the fruit from sticking to the bottom. Turn off the heat and, once the bubbling has stopped, stir in the pectin to combine. Test a teaspoonful of the jam on the chilled plate. After 30 seconds, the jam should be viscous and streak slowly when the plate is tilted.
HOW TO STORE IT Pour the jam into clean glass jars and refrigerate for up to 4 months. Or pour it into sterile canning jars and process for 15 minutes (review the canning instructions). This will keep for up to 1 year on the shelf.
Quince are fall and winter fruit and they’re very high in pectin, making them a dream for jams and jellies. This preparation is called a paste, but it’s really sort of an adult fruit chew just born to sit alongside Manchego cheese and Marcona almonds. Don’t let the week-long preparation time deter you; most of that is just curing time.
Makes about 6 ounces
TIME COMMITMENT About 1½ hours
¾ pound quince, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch cubes
⅔ cup sugar
⅔ cup water
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
INSTRUCTIONS Line a small rectangular baking dish (about 6 by 4 inches) with parchment paper, and lightly oil the paper with a neutral vegetable oil.
Combine the quince, sugar, water, and salt in a medium saucepan. Cover, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to a simmer and stir occasionally for 20 to 25 minutes, until the fruit completely breaks down and the mixture turns a dark, caramel color. Draw a spoon across the bottom of the pot; the mixture should streak and hold its shape before flowing together again. Mash the mixture with the back of a spoon or with a potato masher (or carefully spoon it into a food processor and puree it for a totally smooth consistency). Stir in the lemon juice. Pour the hot paste into the paper-lined dish and let it set at room temperature for 4 days. Lift the paste out of the dish with the paper and invert onto a flat surface covered with oil-lined parchment paper; let it cure for an additional 3 days at room temperature, uncovered. The dried and cured paste should be firm throughout and slightly tacky on the outside.
Using a knife or a bench scraper, trim the edges of the paste to make them even and attractive (that is, if you like your food even and attractive).
HOW TO STORE IT Wrap the paste tightly in wax paper and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 year.
Where does one draw the line between a catsup and a sauce? My personal definition is that if I want to dunk French fries in it, it’s a catsup. This hot little number is way more versatile than your standard bottled tomato catsup. It’s tangy, sweet, severely savory—killer on a chicken sandwich or with pork loin. Find a friend with a plum tree (thanks, Tom!) and you will have plums a-plenty to get this in gear.
Makes about 4 cups
TIME COMMITMENT About 1½ hours
5 pounds black or red plums, preferably Santa Rosas
2 cups water
1⅓ cups sugar
⅔ cup plus 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
6 tablespoons orange marmalade
1 large cinnamon stick
2 star anise
2 whole cloves garlic, peeled and lightly scored with the tip of a knife
4 teaspoons kosher salt
INSTRUCTIONS Wash and stem the plums and lay them in a single layer in the bottom of a large Dutch oven. Add the water. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the fruit from sticking to the pot. The skins will burst and the plums will release their juice and soften.
Remove the pot from the heat, uncover it, and let the fruit cool for about 5 minutes. Pour the plums into a heavy-duty sieve, a small-holed colander, or a food mill set over a large mixing bowl and push the plums through to render the juice and the pulp and to separate out the skins and the pits. Discard the skins and pits. Return the juice and the pulp to the pot and add the sugar, vinegar, marmalade, cinnamon, star anise, garlic, and salt.
Set the pot over high heat and bring it just to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer the mixture, uncovered, to reduce it, being careful not to let it splatter. Stir often, modifying the heat as needed to keep it at a slow simmer as the liquid reduces. Cook for about 35 minutes, until the mixture has thickened. Draw a spoon across the bottom of the pot; the mixture should be thick enough to part, expose the bottom of the pot, and then come back together again. Remove and discard the cinnamon, anise, and garlic. Pour the catsup into glass jars or bottles.
HOW TO STORE IT Kept refrigerated, this catsup will keep for up to 1 year. It can be served warm or cold.
Where does a fruit paste begin and a fruit cheese end? On the culinary map, I believe it’s somewhere around the intersection of Yum and Awesome. Fruit cheese tastes like fruit but slices like cheese, and it comes complete with a surprisingly creamy texture. It’s beautiful, and in addition to tasting swell on its own, it turns any humble plate of Cheddar cheese and crackers into a rather swanky hors d’oeuvre.
Makes about 11 ounces
TIME COMMITMENT 2 to 3 days
1½ pounds sweet apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
⅓ cup dried cranberries
½ cup water
¾ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
INSTRUCTIONS Combine all the ingredients in a large saucepan, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, until the fruit is very tender. Reduce the heat to low, uncover, and mash with the back of a spoon or a potato masher. Allow the fruit to thicken and slowly reduce for about 1 hour, until the mixture darkens, mashing and stirring frequently to keep it from burning or sticking. The mixture will be thick enough to part and expose the bottom of the pot before slowly coming together again.
While the fruit is cooking, line a loaf pan with a sheet of parchment paper long enough that an inch or two hangs over each long side. Lightly oil the paper with vegetable oil and pour the fruit mixture into the lined pan, smoothing it out evenly with a spoon or spatula. It will be about ⅜ inch thick. Refrigerate, uncovered, for 24 hours.
Take the fruit cheese out of the refrigerator. Grasping the paper, lift it from the pan and transfer it to a rack on top of a baking sheet. The cheese should retain its shape. If it doesn’t, return it to the pan and refrigerate for another day before moving forward.
Turn on the oven to its lowest setting and place the fruit cheese—paper, rack, and all—in the oven. Dry the fruit cheese in the oven for 3 hours, with a wooden spoon propping open the oven door to let moisture escape. The cheese should feel dry on top when it’s done. If it’s not, return it to the oven for another hour. Allow the fruit cheese to sit at room temperature for 1 day. The next day, lay a clean piece of parchment paper on the rack and invert the cheese onto the new paper, so that its bottom side is facing up. Put the cheese—rack, paper, and all—back into a low oven for 3 hours. The cheese has cured when the surface feels dry to the touch (but don’t worry if it’s still quite moist in the middle).
HOW TO STORE IT Once it’s cooled completely, wrap the cheese tightly in wax paper and store it in the dairy drawer of the refrigerator. It will keep (and, in fact, improve), when stored well-wrapped, for 6 months.
Back in the day, there was no Sure-Jell. If you wanted your berry jam to thicken up when the fruit was bursting off the vines in August, you turned to the green apples that were planning to sweeten up in the fall. Homemade pectin is not as strong or as dependable as the stuff in the package, but I am in love with the idea of making my cooking projects as humanly as possible. I will always be happier with a slightly runny toast spread than one that is so artificially stiff it can barely move. Dare I say it’s the jam-maker’s equivalent of the difference between silicone implants and the feel of real? Note that you can use red apples for pectin, but your finished product will have a pinkish hue. This is okay if you’re going to use the pectin later in strawberry jam, but you might not want it in peaches. Pectin-making is also a great use for all the skins and cores that stem from making your own applesauce or apple butter.
Makes about 2½ cups
TIME COMMITMENT 7 to 12 hours
5 pounds green apples or crab apples, preferably underripe
3 cups water
INSTRUCTIONS Wash and stem the apples, cutting away any bruising. If the apples are small, leave them whole. If they are large, cut them into halves or quarters, keeping the skins and cores intact (this is where most of the pectin in the fruit resides).
Place the fruit in a large stockpot or Dutch oven and add the water. Cover, bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a simmer for at least 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the apples turn to total mush.
Line a colander with a clean cotton cloth, and place the colander over a large, very clean bucket or bowl. Pour the apple mixture into the cloth and let the liquid drain into the bowl beneath. This liquid is your pectin. Do not press on the apples, or else the pectin (and later your jam) will turn cloudy. Allow the liquid to drain for at least 6 hours or overnight, stirring the mash occasionally.
Once the liquid stops dripping completely even after stirring, discard the solids. Test the pectin for effectiveness. In a small bowl, combine 2 tablespoons rubbing alcohol with 1 tablespoon of the pectin and stir with a fork. Wait for gelatinous solid material to form that is solid enough to be picked up with a fork. If the pectin is still a bit stringy and not solid, pour the pectin into a small saucepan, place over high heat, reduce it to a simmer and let it reduce, uncovered, until it is reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Let cool completely and test the pectin again.
HOW TO STORE IT To store the pectin, keep it in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or freeze airtight for several months. You may also can pectin as you would jam, pouring it into sterilized canning jars, processing it in boiling water for 15 minutes, and keeping it on the shelf for up to 1 year. (Review the canning instructions.)
To use pectin in jams or jellies, use equal amounts of pectin and fresh cut-up fruit. For example, 2 cups of fruit will require 2 cups of pectin.
