Plum and Blackberry Jam

A friend has a huge plum tree in his backyard and invited me over this weekend to make plum wine. We spent a lot of time picking and sorting the under-ripe plums - figuring that the less ripe ones would make a flavorful but less sweet wine. Then it occurred to us that we were working ridiculously hard for something that we couldn't enjoy for three or four months at least! Being instant gratification types - and 'no project is too big' types - we decided to make jam as well.

I very loosely based the jam on some recipes from The Forgotten Skills of Cooking (best cookbook ever), mostly referring to it for general cooking times and pectin levels. I used 3 1/2 lbs of slightly under-ripe Italian plums, about 1 lb of blackberries, 1 cup of water, and 4 cups of sugar. In the end, the jam is a bit sweet for me, but not so sweet it makes me sick. Plus, the flavor is pretty potent, so you don't need too much of it.

I was a bit worried about the jam setting since I don't have any experience with plums and I know that blackberries have very low acidity. But I think we were saved by using under-ripe plums, and the jam set perfectly!

Also, I'm not sure that this has much at all to do with the process of making jam, but it is a very pleasant thing to make jam with an attractive man helping to pick and scrub the fruit.

Peach Marmalade: Fiasco or Fabulous?

The peach marmalade I cooked up a few weeks ago barely set at all and is really more like peach sauce. But, it's delicious. I love the hint of cinnamon and the general brightness of the fruit flavor. Leaving aside the fact that you spoon it rather than spread it, it mostly stays put in a sandwich or on toast. Speaking of which, my favorite restaurant ever is/was called On Toast and they served everything, wait for it, on toast. It was my paradise.

Anyway, I think the marmalade is fabulous, and now I only need to find five or six daring souls who will take jars of it off my hands. I made a bit more than I can eat in the next year!

Marmalade

Since I announced earlier this week that I would be making peach marmalade, a few friends have asked me what this is or if it exists. I know that I love it, but I'm honestly not sure what makes it "marmalade" as opposed to jelly or jam. The internet informs me that marmalade is just what we call jam made from citrus fruits. It also informs me that peaches are not citrus fruits. Good to know. Finally, the Internet has informed me that in many languages marmalade is approximately the equivalent of the English word jam.

To recap: marmalade = citrus jam; peaches = not citrus; marmalade sometimes = jam; Meg eats lots of snobby European condiments.

That said, I found a great Italian peach marmalade recipe online!

This is How a Baker Says "I Like You"

We've Got Peaches

Oh my goodness, don't those look just delicious?!!!  I bought a whole bunch of them to make peach marmalade (one of my top five favorite things I've never made before - I repeat, this blog is not fact checked) but they just look so peach-y.  It seems like a crime to marmalade them!  I was going to make a peach and blueberry cobbler, as well, but I doubt the blueberries will last through tomorrow.

I wish there was a way to capture peaches and summer forever.  As much as I love and anticipate apple season, I love that fleeting moment of summer when there are more peaches and blueberries than we know what to do with and everything smells like peach fuzz.  I always want to hang onto it for just a little bit longer than it wants to stay.

That said, peach marmalade will suit me very well indeed in January.

Happy (Belated) Birthday

It was my birthday!  I know I didn't miss it, but the blog sure did.  Stupid blog.  I don't think we can even be friends anymore.

Anyway, I had a huge birthday party a few weeks ago, and I made this awesome tasting and totally structurally unsound cake.  I don't know what it is with me and cakes lately.  I cannot take them out of the pans without breaking them or finding out I've undercooked them!  I tested my oven with an oven thermometer, and it's working fine.  I think I'm just not very careful.  Or maybe it's Lindsey's fault:

Lindsey and I are birthday buddies (hers is the day after mine), and I find it suspicious that the past two cakes I've made have had Lindsey's name on them and have had some structural issues :)  Of course, it could also have something to do with my total lack of free time and attention span.  I managed to decorate this cake with enough little curlicues, flowers, and writing that it wasn't super noticeable that the entire cake was listing.  Plus, I throw a whiskey party for my birthday, so all my friends were listing too!

Jam Happened!

Jam happened over a month ago, right after I went strawberry picking with my awesome friend Beth, and I forgot to post about it.  I had tons of fun following Darina Allen's old fashioned recipe for strawberry jam!

I used to make grape jelly with my gram, and I was really weirded out by pectin.  I have always wondered since then whether pectin is really necessary for jam and jelly making.  Following Darina Allen's recipe, I used a little bit of lemon juice and a little bit of sugar, and my jam gelled perfectly.  And it was amazingly easy!

I remember spending ridiculous, long, hot days in my gram's kitchen with grape juice EVERYWHERE.  The hardest work I did, other than picking the strawberries, was washing and hulling them.  I did kind of get strawberry juice all over my kitchen during that process.  But then I just mixed the strawberries with some lemon juice and sugar (about half what the recipe called for, because I hate sweet jam), cooked and mashed it a bit, and let it sit overnight.  The next morning, I cooked the jam up for about 2 hours, tested it unsuccessfully to see if it would gel, and, because I was short on time, put it up in jars even though it didn't seem ready.  A few days later, I opened the first jar, and it was perfect.  It turns out I don't really love strawberry jam that much, but this is nice and tart and strawberry-y, and is really great on toast with butter or in a peanut butter and jam sandwich.

Note: if you butter a peanut butter and jam sandwich, it's amazing.  I learned that from my dad.