A friend brought us some homegrown plums this weekend, and instead of making ourselves ill eating them, we made plum jam. It hadn't set up when I left home this afternoon, and I'm not sure it's going to set up at all (even though the skimmings did set) but time will tell. My family appears to be cursed with regard to jam setting.
We used a very simple recipe: fresh plum puree made in the chinois, sugar (roughly 1 1/2 cups per cup of puree), and a packet of liquid pectin. The puree and sugar are cooked together until they've boiled for a minute, then the pectin is added and the foam is skimmed, and you can the jam up. The puree took a long time to boil, but you have to stir it a lot because otherwise you might scorch the bottom of the pot.
Canning itself doesn't take long. Sterilizing the jars took forty-five minutes, which was pretty much the longest process. Each set of four jars went into the water bath for five minutes to seal them, and they all sealed.
The only real pain is getting the jars in and out of the hot water. We only had very large pots around, so we ended up with a steam tunnel. But with a slightly better setup making jam would be even easier.
I'm planning to make rose hip jelly later this summer, when the Bonica and Cecile Brunner roses ripen. I might also buy a flat of cherries and make cherry jam, but that's less likely.
