Simple Plum Jam

This simple plum jam recipe will blow your socks off with flavour. Plums are in season right now and within 20 minutes you can have a couple of jars of home-made sweet plum jam cooling ready to eat using this simple recipe.

Jam making reminds me of my French Grandmother who would make jars and jars of jam. Plum jam has to be one of my favourite jams (alongside blackberry) to slather on hot butter sourdough toast or fluffy buttermilk scones. When Tala Cooking approached me to create a jam recipe using some of their products, I knew this was the one that I wanted to share with you.

What Ingredients go into Simple Plum Jam?

With only 4 ingredients, this jam comes together incredibly easily.

• Plums: any variety will do but the colour will change according to the variety
• Sugar
• Lemon
• Butter

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So how do you actually make jam?

Step 1. Pre-heat your oven to 100C/210F. Wash three preserving jam jars well, rinse and place upside down on an oven rack for 15 minutes to sterilise. Remove just before filling.

Step 2. Halve, de-stone then quarter or chop the plums. Add to a heavy based saucepan and with 2 tablespoons of water, cook for 5 minutes or so until the fruit has softened slightly. (If the plums are super soft and juicy this step isn’t necessary). Place a small plate in the freezer.

Step 3. Add sugar and lemon juice to the softened plums and bring to a rolling boil. Add a jam/confectionary thermometer and cook until the temperature reaches 105C/215F

Step 4. Once the jam reaches the correct temperature, stir in the butter with a spatula until melted. Perform the jam setting test ... remove the saucer from the freezer and place a dollop of jam on the plate. Leave it for a couple of minutes and if you run your finger through the jam and it stays apart, it’s ready. If not then continue to boil and repeat the test.

Step 5. Scoop off the scum from the top of the jam. Carefully remove the jars from the oven and ladle the jam into the preserving jars. Screw the lids on firmly and leave to cool completely. Add a preserving label to the jars and store in a cool dry cupboard until ready to use.

What happens if my jam doesn’t set?

I’m going to trouble shoot this problem with you even for the most seasoned jam makers this can happen, You’ve chopped, boiled, stirred, measured temperature with the hope a a beautiful setting jam only to be left with runnier than expected jars.

What to do in this situation. Cook some more. Basically, pour the jam back into a saucepan and cook for longer to allow the jam to reduce slightly and get to the setting stage. You’ll have to wash and re-sterilize your jam jars again.

Another way is to add a tablespoon of chia seeds to your jar and stir in. They have natural gelling agents and will help the jam to set. You have to like the consistency of chia seeds though, I personally don’t!

Lastly, another option is to pour the jam onto baking trays and cook it in a low oven until some of the moisture has evaporated and it's thick and sticky ready to be jarred again.

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Buttermilk Scones and Simple Plum Jam make the perfect pair

To go with your Simple Plum Jam, I paired them with classic English Scones as found in my recipe here. Soft, flaky with a crunch from the top, these scones are to die for with a dollop of freshly whipped cream and your newly made plum jam.

Tala sent me a couple of their cookware items as shown in the images above that really helped me out when making the scones.

Their Dry Cook’s Measure makes it so easy to measure out flour instead of having to scoop out the flour and make a mess with the scales as I always do! It has a distinctly vintage feel that I love and works so well with the extra large 30cm Mixing Bowl.

The Performance Baking Sheet was the perfect size for the 16 scone rounds that I cut out. It's slightly smaller than some of my big trays and fits perfectly into my fridge.

The Cooling Rack has to be one of my favourite items. I’ve never seen this tri-fold design before and it’s a brilliant space-saving item. Living in an apartment with a kitchen that’s quite short on worktop surface area...having the option of how wide to make it is great.

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Back to the Simple Plum Jam

I’m absolutely in love with the colour of this jam. The plums were yellow fleshed with a dark red skin and the jam totally took on the colour of the skin. Next time I’ll make it with purple skinned plums (no idea of their specific name!!) and we’ll see how the colour turns out!

Have you ever had your small teaspoon drop right into the jam and make a sticky mess of the handle? I have, many a time! When I unearthed this sweet Jam Spoon from Tala I was so taken my it’s functional design. With the hook in the handle, it sits right on the jar edge to prevent it from falling in. Fabulous!

If you love making home made jams then here are a couple of other recipes for your to try out:

Easy Blackberry Jam

Pear and Ginger Compote

For curds or sauces try out:

Home-made Lemon Curd

Salted Caramel Sauce

This post is sponsored by Tala Cooking. All views and opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Emma Duckworth Bakes possible.