The first homemade jam I ever tasted was made with homegrown plums. I was just four or five years old and the trees in our backyard were having a bumper year. My mom picked enough to fill her yellow enamel colander, gave them a good rinse under the tap, and turned them in sweet, slightly drippy preserves. We ate those plums over pancakes and with oatmeal every chance we got.
Though I will often tell people that blueberries are my foundational fruit (and they were the star in my very first solo batch of jam), there is something about the flavor of plum jam that makes my brain go, “ah yes, THIS is what homemade jam should taste like.”
I recently made my first batch of plum jam for this season (I was asked by Anolon gourmet cookware to develop this particular recipe), from the same kind of sturdy black plums that used to grow in our southern California yard. I added a little ground cardamom for extra depth and I cooked the whole thing in the 7.5 quart wide stock pot from the Anolon Advanced line. Though I don’t normally gravitate towards non-stick cookware for jam making, the width and low walls of the pan made it irresistible.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post (hopefully that was clear before you got to this disclosure statement). Anolon has compensated me for the creation of the plum jam recipe. They sent me the stockpot in which I made the jam (I did really like it, though), and they’re providing the cookware set for the giveaway. The thoughts and words are still all entire mine.
Plum Cardamom Jam
Ingredients
- 5 pounds plums
- 4 cups granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Instructions
- Wash plums well and cut them in half to remove pits. Slice the plums into thin half moons and heap them into a low, wide pan.
- Add the sugar and stir to combine. Cover the pan and let the plums macerate for at least an hour.
- When the plums are quite juicy and most of the sugar has dissolved, remove the cover from the pan and place it on the stove.
- Add the cardamom and lemon juice and bring the fruit to a boil.
- Cook the fruit at a controlled boil, stirring regularly, for 30 to 40 minutes, until the plums soften and the syrup thickens. You’ll know when the jam is done because it will become more resistant to stirring, and when you pull the spoon out of the pan, the droplets will be thick and slow moving.
- While the plums cook, prepare a boiling water bath canner and 8 half pint jars.
- When the jam is done, remove the pan from the heat. Funnel it into the prepared jars.
- Wipe the rims, apply the heated lids and clean rings, and process the closed jars in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes (do not start your timer until the pot returns to a full, rolling boil).
- Once the time is up, remove the jars from the canner and set them on a folded kitchen towel to cool. The lids should seal promptly and will often make a pinging or popping sound as the vacuum forms. When the jars are sealed, the center of the lids will be concave and when pressed, the lid will not move or wiggle.
I love my ceramic cast iron Dutch oven for cooking jelly.
My large Cruset orange Dutch oven I inherited from a dear friend. It comes down from the shelf almost every night I cook.
A big stock pan that works great for canning, making soups and some general cooking.
stainless steel 2 handled skillet from my Mom and a large stockpot from my
Nana.
My 5 quart dutch oven!
Ah, my bright blue dutch oven that my mom got me for Christmas a few years ago… it’s just so PRETTY!
I love, love, love my red enamel dutch oven and use it 3-4 times a week. I might be guilty of gravitating towards cooking things that it will be just perfect for. I’m looking forward to trading up to a Le Cruset on ‘tuition liberation day’ when I send the last college tuition payment!!
My favorite pot to cook in: an old stainless steel Dutch oven that my mother-in-law in herited from her mother, so it has seen a LOT of cooking in the past few decades. I use it to make soups, stews, jams, pot roasts…
I really love my crepe pan!
Favorite cookware is, by far, my 10in cast iron skillet. I literally use it everyday. Perfectly seasoned. I have had it for years and plan on passing it down to my kid
I have a 5 qt. pot that I use almost daily. I use it instead of a skillet or a wok. That, & my favorite metal spoon: commercial kitchen quality & length.
My enamel dutch oven! I cook everything in it!
My favorite pan is our old cast iron skillet. (Used to be my 10inch lecruset skillet) but I got brave and realized what I had been missing! It takes on sweet and/or savory so well and really, it is not hard to clean.
My favorite piece of cookware is a 5 or 6qt wide stock pot that I used frequently to make smaller batches of things like soup and sauce, especially on snowy nights 🙂
The most used piece of cook ware is my Wolfgang Puck Skillet. It sees service everyday. But I recently picked up a wide 3 quart “sauce” pan as a freebie at the grocery store. It’s getting use in my canning activities lately.
My favorite is my Kilner enameled jam pot. It is huge though. The analog size would be perfect for small jam batches and I do make a lot of no knead bread it would be fabulous for.
Sue Malick
I got a dutch oven for Christmas last year, it very quickly became my favorite piece of cookware.
My Mother In Law’s cast iron skillets.
My huge non-stick red skillet with low sides is my go-to pan for making large batches of anything. I used it to make the honey sweetened tomato jam and it worked beautifully.
Like many of you, my dutch ovens are my most-used cookware: jams and salsas in the summer, soups in the winter.
I love my 12in cast iron “chicken fryer” which I use for nearly everything. Cast iron is my fav.
My favorite pot is an elderly cast iron dutch oven that came from my grandmother. We call it the “Rouladen Pot” in our house because that’s what she used to braise rouladen. It also makes great pot roast.
Iron skillet.
Probably my extra large stock pot. I don’t use it often but there’s really no substitute.
I have an enameled Dutch oven I got for a great deal at TJ Maxx… I love that thing!
My favorite is a tiny sauce pot that my mother bought when she was in her twenties. It’s the perfect size for one person meals!
My dutch oven! You can use that thing to cook anything!
I love my large dutch oven. although I rarely use it in the oven, it makes a nice all-around cooking pot for large batches of nearly anything.
I love my grill pan, especially here in Floida when it’s simply too hot to actually fire up the grill.
My favorite piece of cookware is a heavy, round enameled cast iron pot with a lid. I love to braise in it or cook up a big batch of beans!
I love my big red Le Creuset dutch oven. I use it almost everyday and it’s definitely my jamming pot of choice!
I have a huge cast iron skillet that I use for almost everything. It goes in the oven, it cooks on the stove, it even goes on the grill from time to time when it’s too hot to cook inside. I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.
I love my Dutch oven. Use it all the time for soups stews and then for my cooking recipes that I can
My husband’s pressure cooker, makes delicious rice! 🙂
I have a big enameled Dutch oven that my mom gave me for Christmas a few years ago, and rarely does a week go by when I don’t use it at least once. It’s a really happy shade of bright orange that doesn’t really match anything but I love it anyway. 🙂
The older I get, the more I find myself becoming partial to a cast iron skillet I found eons ago at a garage sale. The bottom has a deep crust cover on it, but the inside is buttery smooth. It heats up and holds the heat like a dream and cooking in it is always predictable in a lovely way. It’s taken me nearly 40 years to get used to cooking with a cast iron skillet, but every time I do, I somehow feel like I’m paying homage to all my foremothers who came before me and stood over wood fires and heated stoves to make a meal.
I love to use my enamel dutch oven – and it’s red, which is fun!
My cast iron skillet from my mother-in-law. It is just the right size and is my go to pan for many tasks.
Favorite? Well, that depends entirely upon the task. A small, non stick skillet probably is used most frequently because it is just the right size for a grilled cheese sammy, for instance. But, the pieces we cherish most are the cast iron – they are used for almost everything made outside the crockpot. Well, except the BIG stainless steel pot used for canning EVERYTHING!
My orange Le Crueset dutch oven. I cook with it weekly.
My very small cast iron frying pan is perfect for one egg but I do also love my big copper stock pot – one cooks for one, one cooks for many; some days it’s hard to choose which path to take!!
My favorite is my Le Crueset Dutch oven. I use it for everything – jam to stew!
I got a cast iron skillet from my mother (well seasoned) and it is a great “go to” skillet for me.
I love my Dutch oven. It’s so versatile but really shines when making stew.
Love my pampered chef skillet, it is used daily at my house for something. Second is my large stock pot, abused during canning season
a cast iron skillet I found in our garage. It belonged to my husbands grandmother.
I use it daily & just love knowing it belonged to her…
I love my Dutch oven. Pasta sauce, soup, pot roast…it gets me through winter.
My small cast iron skillet is my favorite. It’s a hand-me-down from my husband’s side of the family. I’m so privileged to have it!!
I LOVE to cook in a saucier pan. Cooking rice, risotto or just veggies in this pan is so easy!
I am single and cook in small batches, so my current favorite is an au gratin baking dish from Emile Henry. I have two and they are fabulous!