I can't wait for it to be summer again.
This morning I defrosted my windows in a rather fun and horribly cold way. With my phalanges. Also my feet. (I think I need to get out of the house.)
Pining over warmer days made me look back through a bunch of woe begotten and forgotten drafts of hobby-ish things I did last year but never got around to posting. Making plum jelly was one of them. And with the beautiful summer greens and fruit purples, I had to reminisce.
The recipe I used was pretty much exactly the same as a previous jelly post, here, about making crabapple jelly. I even continued to use powdered pectin because I'm so great at following my own suggestions not too.
Really there are only two differences between the two recipes, the rest of the process is the same. The first, obviously, plums are plums and not crabapples. We hunted the plums in the BFs parents backyard. (Tiniest plums I've ever seen! Hopefully not poisonous.... I mean I've eaten a whole thing of the jelly already and not died.... So hopefully that's a good sign.) And second, you don't really need to de-stem plums. They need to be pitted. Never fear though! Tiny plums are no match for a cherry pitter (random kitchen appliance win!). After they had been successfully pitted it was the same deal as with the crabapples.
- Make the juice! About 5lbs of plums to about 5 cups water. Boil, mash, strain like a boss.
- Sterilize all the jars! Water bath canning! Yay!
- Take plum juice and add pectin, etc. Bring to a boil, add sugar! Stir! Boil. Ladle into jars.
- Process jars for right amount of minutes (15 in Edmonton) in a boiling water bath. Remove and cool.
After all the jellies were made, the next crucial step. Get rid of them all. Which was way easier that I thought.
I'm looking forward to canning in 2014. I think pickles are in order. Lots and lots of pickles.
-Andrea
The Half-Assed Hobbyist