Plum Jelly

The sand plum tree in our front yard is loaded with plums.  This is a native tree and the plums don't have a thick flesh like the commercial plums at the store.  They have a large pit surrounded by about 1/4" of flesh.  While not ideal for fresh eating, they are great for making jelly.  If you have a yard, give thought to planting a fruit tree.  They look good in the landscape and provide a fresh, wholesome crop for you and your family.

All of the items needed for jelly-making can be purchased at WalMart and probably at your local grocery store.  Once you have the basic concept of jelly-making, you can make jelly out of anything.  There are recipes for mint jelly, jalapeño jelly, elderberry jelly, dandelion jelly, etc.  Give it a shot!

Harvesting:

When ripe, plums pull from the tree with little effort.  We have found that shaking the tree drops all mature fruit allowing us to just pick it up off of the ground.  This would probably damage larger plums with more flesh on them, but it saves a lot of time and effort with the smaller fruits of a sand plum tree.






Making Jelly:

Before we get started, this post is intended to give the reader a basic understanding of how jelly is made.  It is not intended to be a direct recipe or instruction manual.  We recommend purchasing a good book on food preservation and following it.  The Ball blue book is the gold standard and is cheap at twice the price.

HINT: To really hit the easy button on your first attempt, skip the fruit cooking, and use store bought juice. Frozen grape or apple juice concentrate works well. Just dilute to taste.

Items needed:

Large pot
Large bowl
Mesh strainer
Cheese cloth
Sugar
Pectin (optional)
Chickens (optional, but recommended)

Rinse plums thoroughly under cold water.  Barely cover fruit with water and bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to low and simmer until soft (~15 minutes).

For crystal clear jelly, do not mash or squeeze the pulp as that will result in cloudy jelly.  We want as much jelly as possible and aren't turned off by a cloudy appearance, so we mash the fruit while boiling to release as much juice as possible.

Strain the pulp through a mesh strainer to remove 99% of the pulp.

Restrain it through four layers of fine cheesecloth to remove the rest.

After it has cooled, we let our chickens have a go at the pulp.

Put the juice into a pot that is at least three times too large for the amount of juice.  It will foam a lot and you don't want it overflowing.  Measure juice volume and then stir in one cup of sugar for every cup of juice.

Before we go any further, we need to understand why jelly becomes jelly.  Many fruits, plums included, contain a large amount of pectin.  When the sugar and pectin are heated to a certain point, they react together and form a gel.  Knowing this, we boil the fruit juice and sugar mixture hard while stirring until it passes the jellying test (~10 minutes).

To conduct the jellying test, dip a cool spoon into the jelly.  Remove the spoon and hold it sideways.  If the mixture drips off it isn't ready yet.  If it congeals, it's ready to can.  Sometimes fruits do not have enough pectin in them to create firm jelly.  If it fails the jellying test after 20 minutes, add commercial pectin per the label.








Canning the Jelly:

Items needed:

Pot large enough to immerse jars
Canning lids, jars, and rings
Jar grabber
Canning funnel (optional)
Lid magnet (optional)

Sterilize jars and canning funnel by boiling them in water for 10 minutes.  Boil new canning lids for 5 minutes to soften their gasket material.  Leave them in the hot water until ready to use.  Skim foam off the top of the jelly and discard.  Fill hot jars with hot jelly, leaving a 1" head space.  Screw hot lids in place and process in a boiling water bath as directed by your canning manual.

Remove jars from canner with the jar grabber and allow them to cool and set up over night.  Store at room temperature until opened, then refrigerate.

Voila!  Homemade jelly!

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