Plum and Rose Jam
Plum and Rose Jam
Got a lot of plums? And roses? And a little time? Make a batch of Plum and Rose Jam and you can savor the flavor of summer, all winter long.
Fresh Fruit
We were given a box of plums, nectarines, pears, and grapes after the 3 Baron’s Renaissance Fair was over. They were leftover from the historical village my husband participates in and he jumped at the chance to bring home food, if not for US at least for our pigs. I couldn’t see giving the pigs fresh summer fruit if there was a way I could use it for us.
Summer Fruit
First and foremost it became the go-to snack, but we’d also just recently purchased a case of peaches and nectarines, basically our fruit reserves runneth over. The box barely fit in the fridge and I had a huge bowl of fruit on the table too. I was encouraging little people to eat. fruit! at every turn and I feared I would turn them off of fresh fruit (possible?) if I kept pushing, so I backed off and made jam.
Plum Jam Recipe
I perused Blue Chair Jam Cookbook for a good recipe but I just didn’t find one I liked, I wanted to use some of our fragrant Rugosa Roses, the Sitka Rose, in the jam too. So I headed to the Internet, found plentiful recipes and finally settled on a variation of this easy recipe by Jules Food, mostly because I didn’t need to buy anything special, I could make it right away and it used 3 pounds of plums which was about what I needed to move out of the fridge and fruit bowl.
Plum and Rose Jam
Ingredients
- 6 cups plums diced
- 2 cups Sugar
- 1 lemon zest
- 3/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/2 cup of fragrant EDIBLE rose petals very clean, bug free, rinsed if need be
Instructions
- clean and sterilize 4-5 half pint jars, fill with boiling water to keep warm
- wash and dry matching lids as well, keep lids in hot water for a good seal later
- get a boilng water bath going to seal the jars in
- place the diced plums in a deep pot, this jam will bubble up while cooking, a deep pot makes it easy to keep it under control
- add the sugar and stir to combine
- turn the heat to medium low
- when the plums start to juice raise the temperature to medium and keep cooking
- stirring in the lemon zest, lemon juice and rose petals at this time too
- keep cooking and stirring, you don't want the jam to scorch but you need to get the temperature to 220˚ for a gel
- once it really starts boiling away it will boil up and then the volume will reduce
- you can begin checking for set soon after this point
- take a chilled plate from the freezer and plop a bit of jam on it, let it rest there and cool, if it gets firm and sets up a skin it's ready, if not keep cooking and try again in a few minutes
- OR if you have a candy thermometer clip it on and cook until it reaches 220˚
- once it reaches 220˚ it's ready to go in the jars
- skim off any foam, set this aside as a kid treat, eating this is the BEST part of mom making jam
- dump the warm water out of the jars, pour in the hot jam, wipe the rims, cap them and seal them in a boiling water bath 1 inch deeper than the lids of the jars for 10 minutes
Notes
- clean and sterilized pint jars filled with boiling water and set aside, lids and rings-approximately 4-5
- boiling water bath started in a canning kettle
- 3-4 saucers popped into the freezer or a candy thermometer
Nutrition
The rose petals gently lend a floral note of a soft summer evening to the crisp freshness of just barely ripe plums in this easy little recipe. Maybe back off the lemon a little bit, I don’t know that it needed the juice of a WHOLE lemon, it’s pretty tart but we like tart. And because our roses are so SO fragrant I skipped the rose extract. Plum and Rose Jam, a new one for the pantry, can’t wait to savor it all winter, reminiscing over abundant fruit.
this looks glorious , but how do you tell if a rose is edible?
Kate, I believe most roses are edible, they are used as flavorings in India a LOT–I guess I was thinking more along the lines of DON'T eat roses from the florists (sprayed with JUNK) and don't eat roses from any garden sprayed with bug killers–especially DON'T eat your neighbors PRIZE WINNING roses : )
Good question and I will edit the post and pop in the answer there as well
Wow, this sounds tasty. I am hoping to find some wild plums this summer, I hear there are a lot around here, then I shall just have to raid my Mom's yard for roses 🙂 Cheers!
OH! how lucky are you??? free plums…send me some?? HA! let me know if and when you make them I want to see what wild plums look like!
This looks utterly delicious and not to difficult to make. I haven't made a lot of jams yet, but they are on my list to try this summer – especially with all the wild berries in Alaska!
Oh my gosh, I literally strained some rose petal syrup five minutes ago. Thank you for this recipe; I'll keep it in mind this week! Great photos too.