Plum Jam with lime and cardamon

As I love the flavour of cardamon, as evidenced by my recent lime marmalade making, I decided to flavour this jam with that same spice.  I would normally use lemon juice in jam making, to add acidity, but with several dozen frozen limes in the freezer, I thought I would take the opportunity to see how the flavour of lime would go with plums in this small batch of jam.

1Kg victoria plums, weighed after prepared and chopped into smallish pieces, about quarters, went into the preserving pan. I added one lime which came straight from the freezer quartered to the fruit, and the five bruised cardamon pods with no water, and slowly heated this till the juices started to flow, in a thick bottomed pan.  Every couple of minutes or so, I gave the pan a stir with a steel slotted spoon, and slowly more liquid came out from the fruit.  When I was happy that there was sufficient liquid, I left the fruit to cook over a moderate heat with the lid on, and after about ten minutes took off the lid to allow for a further little evaporation.

When I felt the fruit was sufficiently softened, 800g white granualted sugar was added.  As soon as the sugar was dissolved over a moderate heat, the heat was increased and with a good rolling boil, afters about 15 minutes I started to use the Thermapen.  At 105 C I turned off the heat, put a spoonful on the saucer which went into the fridge, cover the pan with the lid...and waited.  Yes there was the sure sign of the wrinkle on the top of the jam.  I removed the cardamon husks, left the seeds behind, and potted the pieces of lime peel, ready to use in some fruity bread or wherever candied peel is called for.

In the past I have been potting up the jam immediately, but I feel that with lumps of fruit, a little of the liquid would be pulled out into the jelly matrix, and dilute this.  I therefore left the jam to cool completely, and in the evening returned to it.  Carefully increasing the heat, whilst checking that there was no sticking to the bottom, brought the jam to 105 c, then allowed the jam to cool for about 10 minutes before potting it into heated sterilized jars.

I feel that this waiting and reheating the jam has led to a very good set indeed.

The jam has turned out very well, and I expected comments at the breakfast table to be somewhat along the lines:  Why put all these flavourings in?  If you have read some of my previous comments on preserves, you will know that I love adventure and innovation in flavour, whereas Mr M loves traditional preserves.  However I completely agree with his opinion that it works wonderfully on toast.

I hope Jane who gave me the plums, will enjoy her jar of jam.

I am normally a purist when it comes to Marmalade, well for me Toast is for Marmalade, and at a pinch good with hot crusty rolls,  but jam is never for toast.  I changed my mind on this was when I first made wild plum jam from  lovely little wild yellow plums.  I have since found out that they are called Mirabelle de Nancy...and I must find a tree to grow in the garden.  In many areas these grow wild in the hedgerows, but I am yet to find them growing close enough to home to go and forage.

I've ordered a small Mirabelle de Nancy, which should be planted in the garden this autumn, and hopefully I shall be able to pick my own mirabelles in a couple of years time.