Plum and Cardamom Preserves
7 1/2 c. pitted, chopped plums (about 3-3.5 lbs)
6 c. sugar
1.5 c. water
1 t. + 1 t. ground cardamomMakes ~3.5 pints
Sterilize 4 pint jars, lids, and rings according to your favorite method. (I heat the jars in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, and boil the lids and rings for 10 minutes in a saucepan)
Combine plums, sugar, water, and 1t. cardamom in a large, heavy pan or kettle. Bring to a rapid boil and skim off foam. Boil for ~20-25 minutes, stirring frequently to prevent burning. After 25 minutes, check that the mixture is ready using one of the following methods. If not, boil until done, checking every 3-4 minutes.
You can check that the preserves are done in one of two ways:
1) using a candy thermometer, monitor the temperature of the mixture. Once it reaches 220 degrees, remove pot from the heat
2) the ‘wrinkle test’: while mixture is cooking, place a small plate in the freezer. Spoon a small amount of the mixture on the plate and refrigerate for 2 minutes. Push the mixture with your finger — if it wrinkles, then it’s ready; if it stays smooth and acts more like honey, continue to boil.Once the mixture is ready, stir in remaining 1 t. cardamom, then ladle hot mixture into sterilized pint jars. Wipe rims with a wet paper towel, then place lids on jars and secure by screwing on rims finger-tight. Flip hot jar upside-down onto a clean kitchen towel and allow to cool. If any of the jars do not seal, process in a hot-water canning bath for 10 minutes, or place in the refrigerator and use within 1 month.
Enjoy!
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This preserve came about thanks to one of my co-workers with a prolific plum tree in his backyard. He brought me about 4 lbs of delicious, ripe, and juicy black plums, which begged to be made into some sort of preserve or pickle… Thanks Scott! After perusing my many cookbooks, preserving guides, and pickling books, I decided to go with a spiced twist on one of the simplest recipes I came across.
The spice twist I added was cardamom. Cardamom is one of my favorite spices, and I happened to have a few teaspoons kicking around my spice cabinet from the last Daring Baker’s Challenge. Cardamom, though it is strong and pronounced, goes wonderfully with many things — blended into yogurt and water for a yogurt drink, with cranberries for cranberry sauce, with Indian curries, and of course, with fresh stone fruit — delicious!
Usually when making no-pectin preserves, you want to use a mixture of under-ripe and ripe fruit, as under-ripe fruit has a higher pectin content. Since I was using 90% ripe fruit here, I had to boil the mixture a bit longer to get it to the right consistency; in this way, preserve making is a bit of an art — since each piece of fruit is different — different ripeness, different peel-to-flesh ratio, different seed size, etc — there are no hard and fast rules for preserve making; you just sort of boil, test, boil, test until it’s ready… after one or two attempts, you’ll most certainly get the hang of it.
Some other interesting preserved plum recipes I came across were pickled plums in red wine (from Linda Zeidrich’s The Joy Of Pickling), plums in rum, and plum butter. Perhaps if I come into some more plums I’ll give these a try (especially the plums in rum — I’m a sucker for rhyming recipes!)
Still Hungry? Try one of these:
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July 21st, 2008at 4:48 am(#)
Yum! How did the plum work with the cardamom? What do you use it on?
July 21st, 2008at 8:43 am(#)
valereee – the plum/cardamom combination is lovely! I bet you could use a vanilla bean with excellent results as well. I have been eating it for breakfast on biscuits, either plain or with a smear of ricotta
July 22nd, 2008at 8:00 am(#)
quick question…how do you confirm that your jars have sealed?
July 22nd, 2008at 8:45 am(#)
denise — the slight bump in the lid of canning jars is how you can tell whether a jar is sealed — if you can press the center up and down, the jars are not sealed; if there’s no give, they are sealed.
July 22nd, 2008at 11:36 am(#)
one more…do you leave the skins on the plums?
July 22nd, 2008at 12:09 pm(#)
denise — definitely leave the skins on the plums — this is where much of the pectin is, and the preserves won’t setup as well without it. Remove the pits though
July 25th, 2008at 7:31 am(#)
Yum! Maybe I’ll try this for my first canning project.
July 25th, 2008at 8:53 am(#)
Kathy – I think you’ll enjoy it! plus, unlike a lot of pickles etc., the preserves are ready to eat immediately rather than having to sit for a month or more
July 27th, 2008at 9:19 am(#)
love homemade preserves! i also prefer to make them without the powdered pectin. beautiful!
July 27th, 2008at 12:18 pm(#)
cindy – thanks for commenting! All the preserves I’ve made so far have been no-pectin. I’m curious to give it a try though just to see which I like better. what are your favorite preserves to make?
July 27th, 2008at 6:39 pm(#)
thank you for the inspiration! i made my plum preserves with three types of fresh picked plums from our garden, sans water, 1/2 the sugar, and didn’t have any cardamom (loved that idea!), so substituted a little garam masala. yum!
July 28th, 2008at 5:19 pm(#)
YUM YUM YUM. Oh, so, YUM.
July 30th, 2008at 1:22 pm(#)
I made a very similar jam last summer, and i added some grated fresh ginger to the mix. I love the combo- the cardamom gives such a lovely flavor!
July 30th, 2008at 1:28 pm(#)
Melissa – that sounds totally delicious! I come from a family of ginger lovers. In fact, my mom was visiting recently and she begged me to make a ginger marmalade for her — I’m actively searching for recipes if you know of any!
August 5th, 2008at 5:33 pm(#)
I love this! Cardamon is one of my favorite spices too. I add tons of it to our curries, casseroles, and a cinnamon/ginger herb tea with other random spices. You are right, it is perfect in jam. I’ll be sure to try it, thanks for the idea! I make various kinds of jams too, but I haven’t done plum yet… you are inspiring me. I’ll have to give it a shot. I am lazy and make jam in my breadmaker since it has a setting for jam (yeah!). Your site looks great, I’m so glad we found each other.
August 6th, 2008at 2:30 pm(#)
Cindy – jam in your breadmaker?! who’d have thought? I think my next preserve is going to be a spicy one — habanero peach or something like that… yum!
May 5th, 2009at 1:00 pm(#)
Salivating just reading. I’m curious though, do you use black or green cardamom?
May 6th, 2009at 10:51 pm(#)
Alex — I used green cardamom. I’ve never actually come across black cardamom, though I’ve read about it in various recipes in Indian cookbooks. Have you tried it? is there a significant taste difference?
August 7th, 2009at 6:10 pm(#)
Well… I just made this with yellow plums and it tastes delicious. Fingers crossed that the jars are sealed!
August 11th, 2009at 8:07 am(#)
i do want to point out that this method of canning (turning jar upside down instead of placing in a canner to heat seal) is not food safe unless you plan to treat these preserves like freezer jams. who wants botulism, right?
August 20th, 2009at 3:11 pm(#)
So I just tried the plum jam — tastes great! But it didn’t set well. Do you think it’s worth it, or even possible, to take the jam out, reheat it, and add some pectin to it? Or just keep heating it more to get a better set?
August 20th, 2009at 11:08 pm(#)
jade — I think you can salvage your jam. Take it out of the jars, bring it to a boil, then cook it until it passes the ‘wrinkle test’ — to do this, you should chill a plate in the freezer until it’s very cold, then drop about 1/2 t. of jam on the plate and put it in the refrigerator for about 2 minutes. Then press the side with your finger — if the top wrinkles, then it’s done. If not, keep cooking it and repeat the wrinkle test every 4-5 minutes or so
Also, this is a looser jam than typical commercial products, but it should have some body
September 5th, 2009at 4:58 pm(#)
You know what, it’s actually excellent on top of vanilla ice cream. Maybe I’ll keep it as is! I will have to try another batch just to see if I can get it to set better. Thanks!
September 16th, 2009at 1:26 pm(#)
You comment that the jam keeps for a month…thought it would last much longer. Why such a short period of time. Thinking of making some with the yellow plums now and putting away for Christmas gifts…not a good idea?
September 16th, 2009at 9:43 pm(#)
Lynn — if you process the jars in a hot water bath to properly seal the preserves will indeed keep for many many months. If you don’t properly seal the jars, then you should keep them in the refrigerator, then to be on the safe side, I would say use them within 4-6 weeks.
As for gifts, I think it makes a great one! last year I gave this jam, along with some lemon marmalade and some homemade spiced nuts (that I sweetened with a batch of failed apple jelly), and they were all a big hit
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