How and in what to cook jam so that it does not burn? Jam Tips

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Seasonal harvesting of berries and fruits in our country is the subject of competition and pride of housewives. Even working women manage to carve out a few summer days to cook a certain number of jars of their favorite jam for the winter. It seems to be a simple matter, but one cannot do without knowing the secrets of processing various fruits. We will teach you how to properly prepare a delicious delicacy from the most capricious and difficult-to-cook berries and fruits, tell you how to cook jam, how long, how to correctly maintain the proportions of the ingredients, and also which fruits are best combined in assorted.

Utensils for making jam

For cooking traditional jam, a copper basin with a long wooden handle is most suitable. The diameter of the basin is 30-40 cm, the height of the side is about 10 cm. Before use, it must be thoroughly cleaned of green plaque. This iseasy to make with baking soda or any cleaning powder.

In what to cook jam for lack of a copper basin? You can use enameled or aluminum, but in the first jam it risks burning, and the second is not recommended due to a possible oxidative reaction. Modern dishes with a double bottom and a Teflon coating will come to the rescue, but they are rarely on sale and are very expensive.

Remove the foam with a wooden spatula, dipping it in syrup. She sticks to it easily. Clean off the foam by running a spatula on the edge of the tea saucer. Foam from jam is a favorite delicacy of children. It can be drunk with tea or added to compote. When cooking, the foam must be removed, otherwise the product will not stand for a long time and ferment.

No more than four kilograms of all ingredients (sugar and fruits or sugar, water and fruits) are taken at one time. If you take more, it will be difficult to boil everything equally well and evenly.

You can’t stir the jam with a spoon, this can damage the shell of the fruit, and they will lose their presentation. This procedure is carried out by gentle and light shaking of the entire pelvis. In this case, you need to make a little twisting movement so that the fruits move from the edges to the middle.

Jars for jam take glass. Wash them well enough with soap, sterilize over steam, heat in the oven or microwave. Boil and dry screw caps without traces of rust. Before closing, the jam is covered with a circle cut out of parchment paper.paper.

Dry jam

Do you want to get the most delicious and original plum jam in your pantry? Then you need to purchase the right variety of plums. Wild plum, or cherry plum, is not suitable, just as other varieties that do not separate the stones are not suitable. We will tell you how to cook pitted plum jam in a way called dry.

The fruits should be cut into halves, remove the seeds, make punctures in the peel with a wooden toothpick. The next step is to prepare the sugar syrup. To do this, pour a kilogram of sugar into a regular saucepan and pour a glass of water. Stir, put on fire and bring to dissolution.

When it boils, pour plums into a saucepan, shake and discard in a colander. Strain the syrup into another bowl. Pour plums on a baking sheet and put in an open oven on a small fire to dry. Sprinkle the withered halves with icing sugar mixed with cornstarch and place in jars. The resulting dry jam can be used when baking cakes and pastries, as well as decorating other desserts.

Plum jam

If you have a desire to learn how to cook seedless plum jam so that it resembles jam, then we will tell you about it.

If you have one kilogram of plums (the weight is taken after removing the seeds) and the same amount of sugar, you can cook an excellent jam in a way that is considered classic, but somewhat different from the generally accepted one. It is also suitable for harvesting other similarfruits such as apricots.

Prepare syrup from half of the sugar and a glass of water (what to cook jam in, we described above). Divide the plums into halves, pierce with a sharp stick and remove the pits. Put the fruits in a saucepan, pour over the syrup, let it boil for a few minutes, but not more than five, and set aside for 6-8 hours. After the specified time, strain the jam. Leave the berries in a basin, and boil the syrup in a separate bowl. Pour the hot liquid over the plums, add the remaining sugar and boil the jam.

Thanks to all these manipulations, the plums will remain intact, and the syrup will thicken during storage, but will be transparent.

Apricot jam

Our apricot jam can be called a delicacy with a surprise. To succeed, you have to be very careful. You will need 1 kg of apricots and two glasses of black currants.

Currants should be cut off with scissors ponytails. You will have to act carefully so as not to damage the berries. Rinse currants and apricots and dry on a towel. Make cuts on apricots and remove the seeds, and put a couple of currants in their place.

In what to cook apricot jam, there is no need to repeat: copper utensils are best, at worst - enameled. First, syrup is made separately. To do this, one liter of water is poured into the pan, a kilogram of sugar is added and dissolved by boiling over low heat.

The apricots stuffed with currants are placed in the basin, poured with syrup and brought toboiling. Immediately remove from heat and clean overnight so that the fruits are saturated with syrup. The next day, boil again, carefully removing the foam. This is repeated 3 or 4 times. Boil for 10-15 minutes, no longer.

Ready-made apricots that have almost completely absorbed the syrup are put into prepared jars.

Peach jam

For jam, it is best to take slightly unripe, that is, hard peaches. Before cooking, they should be freed from the peel. To do this, make cross-shaped incisions on each fruit. Put the water on the fire, when the water boils, dip the fruit in it for a few seconds. In places of incisions, the skin will turn away, and it can be easily removed. Do not overdo it, otherwise they will soften. Now cut the pulp from the seeds and put it in a bowl for jam. Enamelware or a copper basin is the best way to cook peach jam.

Peaches are covered with sugar for 10 hours, that is, at night. During this time they will give juice. The ratio of ingredients: for 1 kg of pulp of peaches - 1 kg of sugar.

Cooking peaches is best in several steps - bring to a boil, remove the foam and turn off. Repeat the procedure the next day. And so 3-4 times. Jam is considered ready when its drop does not spread, but retains a convex round shape.

Mulberry jam

Mulberries, or mulberries, are very sweet, juicy and fragrant. Of these, it is difficult to cook traditional jam. We will teach you how to make it without sugar. It will turn out jam, and filling for pies, and a concentrated drink. The main secret is what to cook inmulberry jam. In our case, you will need a 3-liter glass jar and a 10-liter bucket. In the process of boiling, the berries settle and decrease very much in volume - it will take almost ten kilograms of berries to get a full 3-liter jar.

The bucket must be filled halfway with water, put a rag on the bottom, and a three-liter jar full of mulberries on it. Berries must be clean. For this purpose, when collecting under a tree, a large sheet of plastic film is placed on which it crumbles. A bucket of water and a jar of mulberries are put on fire and periodically, as they settle, new berries are added. When the settling process stops, the jar is covered with a lid and boiled for another hour. Then roll up, turn upside down and leave to cool. Store such a workpiece in the basement. An opened jar will spoil quickly, so it is placed in the refrigerator.

Raspberries are harvested in the same way. Vitamins and nutrients are perfectly preserved.

Currant jam

Currant jam alone always turns out sour and somewhat sharp, so we will tell you how and in what to cook currant jam so that it tastes good and retains as many vitamins as possible.

We suggest taking two types of this wonderful berry - red and black - plus apples, walnuts, sugar and honey.

A kilogram of red and black berries, taken in equal proportions, free from green twigs, rinse with water and let dry slightly. Pour a quarter liter of water into a saucepan and boil in itberries. Currant is the record holder for the content of vitamin C. It easily passes into an aqueous solution, but quickly reacts with metal surfaces and collapses, so an enameled pan or basin is the best way to cook currant jam. When the berries are softened, they must be rubbed through a sieve with a plastic mesh.

Pour one and a half kilograms of honey and half a kilo of sugar into a large basin, dissolve over low heat, even better - in a water bath. In the resulting syrup, dip currant puree, 2 cups of peeled walnuts and a pound of apples. Apples should be pre-prepared - free from cores and cut into small slices.

Cook the fragrant mixture for about an hour, shaking occasionally and skimming off the foam.

Blueberry jam

Blueberries are very tasty, juicy and tender berries. For jam, as a rule, they take forest. It needs to be cleared of rubbish. This is done very simply: pour the berries into a basin and fill with cold water. All leaves, twigs and insects will float, and the berries will fall to the bottom. Dried blueberries are covered with sugar in a ratio of 1: 1 and left to let the juice out.

The next day, cook like any other jam, that is, bring to a boil, remove the foam and set aside overnight to stabilize. If you don’t have special dishes and you don’t know how to cook blueberry jam, then take an ordinary heavy-bottomed pan. Stir the berries with a simple wooden spoon or spatula. Sticks best to wood.foam, and, as we already wrote above, it is a source of bacteria that cause the product to turn sour. After the third or fourth cooking, lay out your creation in jars. You can not wait for cooling, but pour hot. Blueberry jam is so fragrant that neither vanillin nor lemon is put in it.

Raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and other wild berries are cooked in the same way. If you like homemade preparations, then get special dishes. The modern industry offers good containers made of stainless steel and alloys with a double bottom and non-stick coating. Their price is quite high, but by purchasing such dishes, you will decide once and for all the question of how to cook jam from raspberries, apples, blackberries and other gifts of summer.

Strawberry jam

We will cook a five-minute, which requires a short cooking time, but needs to create conditions for a long cooling. In addition, with this method, the jam does not burn, and in the case of strawberries, this is important, since it tends to quickly soak and turn into porridge with inept stirring.

For jam, you need to select berries of medium size and the same size. They should be without stalks and sepals, as well as without the slightest sign of spoilage. An important question: what to cook in? Strawberry jam often turns out to be an ugly brown-brown color. The reason for this is the long cooking time. If the berries are of different sizes, then this problem will remain. Therefore, we insist on the same small berries. Our delicacy should be cooked in a saucepan. Subsequently, in order to slow down the cooling and thus bringjam until fully cooked, without resorting to boiling on the stove, you will have to wrap it with a warm blanket.

Prepared berries in thin layers, interspersed with sugar, pour into a saucepan (1 kg of berries - one and a half kilograms of sugar). Leave overnight so that the juice stands out, and the strawberries are saturated with sugar. The next day, put the pot with strawberries on the stove, bring to a boil, remove the foam, remove from the stove and wrap warmly. After a day, boil the jam, pour hot into clean jars, roll up, turn upside down and wrap again. So leave until completely cooled. Jam will turn out natural color and wonderful aroma. The berries will keep intact and can be used for decorative purposes.

Cherry jam

Pitted cherry jam is stored longer than with pits, but inferior to the latter in terms of taste. The bones contain a small amount of hydrocyanic acid, which is dangerous for humans, so jam with seeds is made only for one year. Thick-bottomed dishes are the best way to cook cherry jam: it won't burn and it will cool down long enough.

Cherry jam with pits is made in the following ratio: for 1 kg of cherries - 1.5 kg of sugar. The cherries are washed, the stalks and spoiled berries are selected, covered with sugar and left to form juice. Two and a half to three hours is enough. Then put on fire and bring to a boil. Remove the foam with a wooden spatula. Let it simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes. So that the jam does not burn, do notforget to shake it. Cherry jam with pits is cooked in 5-6 steps. Lay out in half-liter jars already cooled down.

As for how and in what to cook pitted cherry jam, there is not much difference here. The only difference is that the bones are removed from the berries with the help of a special device. Such berries give juice much faster, and therefore they are cooked not in 5-6 steps, but in 3-4.

Apple jam

Apple jam turns out to be especially tasty when chokeberry berries are added to it.

An apple for it needs to be washed and peeled. Cut into halves, remove seeds and hard partitions. Next, you need to cut the apple into slices no more than 1 cm thick. Sort the chokeberry and separate it from the branches.

Take a pan with a non-stick coating, this is what is best for cooking apple jam, pour 1 kg of sugar into it and pour 250 ml of water. Boil the syrup, dip the mountain ash into it - 500 grams and the same number of apple slices. Boil. Boil for 20 minutes, constantly shaking and removing the foam. Remove from heat, cover and set aside to stabilize for two and a half hours. Repeat cooking twice and pour into small jars.

Pear jam

For pear jam, only strong sweet pears are taken. In what to cook pear jam, it does not matter much. The choice is yours. You can use both an old grandmother's copper basin and a modern pan with a double bottom and non-stick coating. Behindin the absence of such dishes, ordinary, aluminum or enameled ones are also suitable. Pears need to be washed, cut into halves, cut off the stalks, remove the core and chop into slices or cubes.

Cook a syrup from 1 kg of sugar and 1 glass of water, dip the pears into it and cook for two and a half hours, constantly removing the foam. During this time, the syrup will thicken, but this will become apparent only after the jam has cooled. It stays liquid when hot. 10 minutes before the end of cooking, put vanillin or lemon zest into it. Pour into jars when it cools down a bit.