Wednesday, June 23

Plum jam

My parents planted an orchard around their house. For some reason, this year the plums are what bore fruit.

Loads and loads of fruit.

I brought home about ten pounds of plums and stared at them in consternation, wondering what in the world I was going to do with them all.

So I figured that I would make some into jelly and the rest into fruit leather.

The jelly turned out pretty good.


It's a wonderful red color, and tastes pretty good, if a bit tangy.

My fruit leather also turned nicely into leather after about 30 hours dehydrating on plastic-wrapped cookie sheets in the oven. (Set to Warm and left on overnight, too!)


The trouble was, I ran out of sugar, and believed all the websites that said, "Oh, as it dries, the sugar content of the fruit concentrates and you don't need to add much sugar!"

Bull. This leather is like eating Warheads.

I did add a bit of sugar, though, so in spots it's nice and sweet. The kids aren't too fond of it. I think I'll probably eat this whole batch myself. The texture is exactly like a fruit roll-up, though, and upon looking at it, I recalled how fruit roll-ups have a sort of grainy texture when held up to the light.

Know what that grainy texture is?

SUGAR.

So yes, I think my next attempt at fruit leather is going to be strawberry. With sugar. About 3 pounds of it.

2 comments:

Meg said...

3 pounds of sugar, really? LOL!

The plum jelly is quite tasty. Plum is my favorite of jam and jelly flavors (so far) and I like how you didn't put too much sugar in it. When I did mine a few years ago I think it turned out too sweet. So bravo!

Farm Girl said...

I agree with Meg, I really like how tart your jam is verses sweet like I make it. Your fruit leather story cracks me up. Maybe they will get used to it. I always thought the fruit leather you buy in the store is mostly sugar and a little bit of fruit.
At least now you know how to make it. Too bad you couldn't puree the rest and freeze it and save it for cobblers. Megan said that plum was yummy.

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