Cup Jams

[talon]

For those of us who live in cities and urban and suburban area where we lack ready access to orchards of our own - or who have dwarf orchards that produce only a (comparatively) small amount of fruit that is (mostly) devoured by birds and squirrels, making jams and jellies always seemed rather pointless. It was expensive to buy dozens of pounds of fruit for making fruit butters, conserves, jams, and jellies.

I remember growing up and helping to harvest pounds and pounds of cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, pears, and apples, not to mention the hours spent in the hot sun stooping over rows of strawberry plants or the scratches I got from berrying. And then, when summer was at its hottest, we'd stand over huge cauldrons of cooking fruits, stirring and stirring and stirring - in shifts because it was too hot for any one person to do it from beginning to end.

We'd put up dozens of jars of dark apple butter, golden apple jelly, lush apple pie filling, apple syrup, rich orange peach butter and the more delicate apricot butter, and majestically deep and dark plum butter, jewels of peach, grape, strawberry, raspberry, mint, and plum jellies, not to mention the conserves and pie fillings. Rows of them, filling not just our basement root cellar, but the root cellars of nearly everyone in town. Preserving the harvest had to be a community event because it was just too much work for one person or even one family.

Here, in cities and suburbs, we don't have the close ties and shared harvestings we had in that small village. When we preserve our harvest, we're doing it for our small family - or just ourselves - and not for the whole community. Our fruits and vegetables are bought a few at a time from the grocery store or - if we're lucky, a farmer's market where the farmers bring their good produce and not their leavings.

But we don't have to make gallons of jelly all at once.

Nor do we have to stand on stools over huge cauldrons, stirring and stirring and stirring. We can make our jellies and jams and fruit preserves (and vegetables, too) in small batches, half cups and cups at a time.

It's simple. Buy your fruit from wherever you choose to buy it. Wash and peel and cut it up, removing seeds and pits (apple skins can be set aside for making apple jelly, and the pulp can make pie filling and apple butter). Weigh the fruit and add an equal weight or slightly less of sugar. Bring the fruit and sugar to a boil, then let it sit overnight, covered. The next day, cook the jelly or jam down in a non-stick skillet, just a cup or two at a time, over a medium high heat. It'll set up in around 5 minutes. Ladle it into a sterile jar. If you plan to eat it within a week or two, you don't need to process it at all. You can flavor each cup's worth or half cup's worth of jelly or jam to your liking, adding cinnamon, cloves, lemon verbena, rose geraniums, mint, basil, sage, thyme, rosemary, jasmine, or whatever to it.

This technique doesn't use extra pectin, so you get a softer set and it's way easier to tell when you've got the right amount of setting up. You can use less sugar, too.

The less sugar you use, the softer the final set will be. You can use as little sugar as 35% of the weight of the fruit and still get a decent set. The least amount of sugar will give you a "spoon jam" set that's thicker than a syrup, You'll know it's set up by the feel of it. As you stir, you'll feel it thicken in the skillet. You'll even see how it thickens - kind of like gravy. And there's the old reliable spoon test. When you first start making it, the fruit will pour off the spoon like water. As it thickens, it'll form several narrow streams, and when it thickens, it'll fall off in a single sheet again, like water, only thick and slow. That's when it's done.

Remove it from the heat right away and ladle or pour into a sterilized canning jar.

I recommend using slightly underripe fruit for making jams and jellies and setting aside the really ripe fruit for making pies and smoothies and adding to pancakes and waffles and eating out of hand. Undderipe fruit has higher pectin and it doesn't matter that it isn't as sweet because you're adding sugar anyway.

Don't be afraid to mix fruits, either. Got half a pint of left over blackberries and part of a quart of strawberries and 2 apples? You have got the finest makings of a Jammin' Berry-App. Got a peach and 2 plums and a few pears? You've got a Triple Play Jam! Add some gingerroot or thyme or cinnamon and boost that flavor.

This is so simple, you can easily make customized batches of half pint jars of jam and jelly for any occasion - or none! - or to give as a nearly last minute gift.

Be bold with your fruit.