More Preserving

 

Is and has been going on.  Wednesday I did not do any preserving during the day as it was just far too hot.  I chose to do the preserving in the evening, and although still hot it was a lot more bearable. 

I set about all the plums on Wednesday evening.  The Victoria Plums are absolutely fantastic, in reality I could do with another couple of trays to squirrel away, but at least I have these. I also experimented a little.  I have never preserved whole plums before halves and quarters but not whole plums and I was worried about how they would turn out.  I specifically therefore used my precious vintage Dual Purpose Kilner jars, which are really wide mouthed for the bulk of the plums.  Out of all the jars that my Mum had these three are the only ones remaining.  Mum was a prolific bottler and there were always goodies squirrelled away on the Pantry shelf - on the highest shelf so that I could not get my mitts on them.  Those jars are older than me.  

I started with washing the plums and de-stalking them and checking that each one was suitable for bottling; no bruising that sort of thing.  If they were bruised I put them to one side to sort a little later.  I left both sets of plums in different bowls.

I then set about making syrup.  Was not sure how many pints of syrup was needed but made up 2400ml of light syrup made up of 100g sugar to each 600ml of water.  I simply combined these in a pan and then on a low heat made sure that the sugar was dissolved.  I then skewered each end of the plum with a kebab stick in an effort not to have the skins split and then added the whole plums and then brought the heat up to a gentle simmer for no more than 10 minutes.    

I had jars warming through in the oven and then drained and packed the plums into the jars for the whole ones pushing each plum down as firmly as I could.  I then added some of the plum syrup, to the rim, de-bubbled each jar and tidied up the rims with some white vinegar, popped on the sterilised seal and ring. (two part rings in my case which were firmly tightened and then a quarter click back.  Fruit was water  bath processed after achieving boil for 10 minutes.

I must say that I am terribly pleased with the colour and the flavour of the plums.  They looked jewel like after I had hot packed the jars, but this morning after checking them they colours are more enhanced. They taste just like my Nan used to make them.  Happy memories there too.  I think preserving is also a way of connecting with the womenfolk in our families.  Same skills, different times, sometimes a slightly different process, but uniting one generation with another. I fervently believe that it all comes down to simpler more practical choices that work for you and yours.

Now to the plums that were bruised and decanted into another bowl.  I inspected each plum independently and if half of the plum could be used for more preserves this time in halves or indeed quarters then I will save it, but making sure that what is being used is not damaged in any way.  I did not hot pack these jars but simply added the warm syrup and did the usual checks before closing off the jar.  They are processed for the same amount of time.  Those that did not make it were composted.

That was just for the Victoria Plums.

The variety I bought from the Supermarket was called Black Diamond.  Bit spooky. I had not noticed the name on the tag when buying it. My Granddad had two what he called Black Diamond trees which were the darkest blackest plums that I have ever seen with the sweetest golden flesh. After my Nan died the property was sold and since then I have not seen this variety. They had a lot of heritage and unusual trees in their garden.  The orchard itself was fervent for over 60 years. From what I understand it was developed from a Damson variety and you do need at least two trees to pollinate. However research leads me to believe that there is a possibility that it may still be available from a Heritage grower.

However, the plums from the supermarket are not what I call Black Diamond.  This would appear to be a newer variety of plum, but it is not the one I am after.  This plum though despite being unappealing to me initially is actually a very nice plum once cooked in syrup.  I roughly had 6 punnets of 400g plum i.e. about 2.5kg of plums to bottle, which I did in the same way as above.

For my efforts I have 10 largish beautiful jars of Plums some pinky orangey red the others purpley reddy black.

As it is going to be another hot day tomorrow I will be processing again in the evening.  This time round I have a lot of apple sauce to make - well the first batch anyway.  I am making a chunky apple sauce as per the recipe below.

Chunky Apple Sauce (tarragonnthyme.blogspot.com)

Depending on how I get on will depend whether I make anything else tomorrow evening.  

Photos will follow when they have decided to load. Although there are some photos on the Instagram account.

Catch you soon.

Pattypan

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