Plum Jelly... Mmmm.......... BUT WHY WON'T IT SET?????

[mcaville]

Hi everyone,

Just following up from my last post about turning my 4kg of foraged plums into plum jelly.

I usually have quite a good track record when it comes to making jams and jellies, but this plum jelly is not working out at all. I have red the River Cottage preserving book back to front and have followed their recipe and directions for making plum jam.

600ml of water to every kilo of fruit, then simmer till soft and mushy. next strain through jelly bag over night. next add 450g of sugar to every 600ml of juice. next bring to boil and keep rolling boil till setting point is reached

Now, this jelly was at rolling boil for at least 30 mins and still no setting point. (you may be thinking 'Why hasn't he added pectin?' well, the book tells me that plums are in high in pectin and don't need it.) I bottle it up anyway thinking that maybe it will set anyway. No luck (but makes a nice cordial). Not wanting to drink it all, i emptied the jars back in to the pan and reboiled, this time adding a sachet of silver spoon pectin. The packet tells me that i only need to hard boil this for 4 minutes. This i did and still no setting point. The jelly is now slightly thicker than it was before, but definitely still pourable.

Please, what am i doing wrong??????

[Hedgehogpie]

Difficult! Could depend on how soft your plums were - underripe is best for jam making & ought to give a good result. However, some recipes I have also call for the stones to be cracked open and all the kernels tied into a muslin bag & added to the fruit while it's cooking to aid the set.

[mcaville]

Difficult! Could depend on how soft your plums were - underripe is best for jam making & ought to give a good result. However, some recipes I have also call for the stones to be cracked open and all the kernels tied into a muslin bag & added to the fruit while it's cooking to aid the set.

I've heard that too....... But i've also heard that the kernels contain cyanide............ Mmm, set jelly and risk of poisoning? Seems like a risk worth taking

The plums i used were a mixture of ripe and not so ripe. I thought that the additional pectin on the second boil would have done the trick though............. strange. I think next time i might play it safe and just go for apple and plum.

[Millymollymandy]

Out of interest why did you opt to make jelly from plums rather than jam? It isn't one of the more common jellies - well I've never heard of it! I have no tips if it won't set with pectin added to it. Better make a lot of ice cream to pour it over.

[Hedgehogpie]

Cooking should take care of any small amounts cyanide in the kernels (I hope! Did you know that tiny amounts of cyanide are also counted as a digestive stimulator? Nice thought to have in mind as you expire! I think you'd need to consume quite a quantity before you did yourself any major harm though. Anyway, I digress.)

Plum jam is my favourite too, too much faff to be straining off the pulp for a jelly (co's I'm a lazy cook) plus I do prefer the thick chunky texture. Plum sauce is yummy (big thumbs up to adding it to ice cream and yogurt, or maybe even making a sharp/sour/sweet sorbet with it?).

If you have savoury inclinations you can also make a very mean spicy plum sauce which is fab with cold cuts and strong cheese.

[mcaville]

Cooking should take care of any small amounts cyanide in the kernels (I hope! Did you know that tiny amounts of cyanide are also counted as a digestive stimulator? Nice thought to have in mind as you expire! I think you'd need to consume quite a quantity before you did yourself any major harm though. Anyway, I digress.)

Plum jam is my favourite too, too much faff to be straining off the pulp for a jelly (co's I'm a lazy cook) plus I do prefer the thick chunky texture. Plum sauce is yummy (big thumbs up to adding it to ice cream and yogurt, or maybe even making a sharp/sour/sweet sorbet with it?).

If you have savoury inclinations you can also make a very mean spicy plum sauce which is fab with cold cuts and strong cheese.

I thought that i was being lazy by opting for jelly. Just couldn't bare the thought of stoning all of those plums.

All those recipe ideas sound great. There is certainly enough plums in the hedgerows round here for lots of experimentation!

[snapdragon]

I thought that i was being lazy by opting for jelly. Just couldn't bare the thought of stoning all of those plums.

All those recipe ideas sound great. There is certainly enough plums in the hedgerows round here for lots of experimentation!

spicy sauce sounds great
possibly cooking them like damsons would help the 'stoning' slit them and wait for the stones to rise to the top during cooking? although last year I stoned all mine and they were very loose

[Hedgehogpie]

Yeah, stoning is a chore but it's one of those things that I do on quiet evening with the radio on or if there's something that's not too demanding on the telly. Plus, I have a fairly decent pitter that I found in a charity shop that helps a lot. The stones are scattered back into the hedges of they're not needed in the recipe (you never know, some might germinate!). I'll try to dig out the spicy sauce recipe & post it up later.

[Millymollymandy]

I always stone and never do anything with plums unstoned as I really don't fancy plum+maggot jam/chutney/anything.