Tuesday 19 May 2015

Recipe: Passionfruit Jam

Well, that big bowl of passionfruit that I had sitting on the window sill started to ripen at various rates. I couldn't really keep up with the eating of them, and while some were delicious, some were a bit bitter, probably because they were not really ready to be off the vine yet.

I thought about what I could make, and decided that passionfruit jam sounded amazing. It would be sweet enough to cover any bitterness, and would be like a little jar of bottled summer for use in desserts, baking or over my winter porridge. Winner!

I'd never made jam before, so I needed something that would be fairly easy, relatively foolproof and not require any fancy materials. I had a search around for some recipes, then combined all the parts I liked to come up with the below.
Passionfruit Jam
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Ingredients:
  • 25 passionfruit
  • sugar (about 1kg for that amount of fruit)
  • juice from one lemon
  • water
Method:
  1. Wash all the passionfruit well and scoop the seeds into a container
  2. Take half of the skins, put them in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and then simmer for about 30 minutes, until the skins are soft and the white insides are puffing up and starting to separate from the skins
  3. Drain the skins, and reserve a cup of the liquid. Scrape the inside white pulpy bits from the skin. You can throw the skins away now (or compost them)
  4. Take the white pulp and process it until it is a smooth puree with the reserved liquid
  5. Measure the pulp/liquid puree. You want to match however much you have of that, with sugar. So, I had 4 cups of puree, which equals about 4 cups of sugar
  6. In a large saucepan, put the puree, the seeds, the lemon juice, and sugar. Stir over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Bring it to a boil, then simmer for an additional 15 minutes with minimal stirring (you can use a wooden spoon to make sure the sugar isn't sticking at the bottom
  7. Turn off the heat, and remove the scum on the top of the pan with a spoon
  8. Allow to cool, then decant into clean, appropriately sterilised jars
  9. Close the lids and leave the jars upside down for 15 minutes. The jam will thicken further on cooling
Notes:

  • Store jam in the fridge.
  • The recipe is scalable for different amounts of fruit - you boil half the skins and measure the appropriate amount of sugar out. No need to adjust the lemon.
  • Do not add cold food to hot jars or hot food to cold jars as they will shatter.
  • Sterilised jars are essential for preserving food without spoilage. An easy method I use when I don't have too many jars is to wash the jar, and leave it wet. Put it in the microwave without the lid for one minute.
  • Boiling the skins and using the pulp is necessary because passionfruit don't have a lot of pectin and will not set with lemon juice alone.
Do you make your own jam? What's your favourite type?

6 comments:

  1. Oh, this has taken me right back to childhood! My Australian grandmother regularly made passionfruit jam from the fruit of their backyard vine and it looked just like yours at the end :) I bet it tastes delicious.

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    Replies
    1. My mother used to make a passionfruit cordial which was a similar process to the jam... but I thought jam was more versatile. It's yummy, and definitely takes me back to my childhood too! :P

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  2. I love passionfruit and imagine that passionfruit jam would be wonderful - I like your microwave method of doing the jars (though it would not have helped with my recent chutney making when E decided he should wash all my nicely sterilised metal lids just as I was about to jar the chutney). Your jam looks really beautiful. My last jam making was apricot jam. It is definitely a favourite of mine.

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    Replies
    1. Oh no!!! You can't get mad when they try to be helpful but sometimes it would be lovely to have a little less help! Apricot jam sounds amazing. If I manage to get ahold of a decent amount of it this season, I might have a go at making that too!

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