How To Make Quick and Easy Plum Jam in your Oven!

Delicious Roasted Plum Jam

I am very grateful to live in a place of bountiful fruit. In our yard we have grapes, thornless blackberries, a golden plum tree, hazelnuts, saskatoon berries, blueberries, apples, green figs, and quince. We have an Italian plum tree that has not yet been very forthcoming, but that's okay, because this year two friends gifted us with lovely dark blue, plump, little prune plums. Another friend sent over some sweet, delicious pears from her tree. We are blessed with delicious fruit and generous friends!

So, what to do with all these plums? 
It is true that I love fresh fruit.  I blame my un-fruited childhood in rural Saskatchewan.  Yes, we did have berries of many kinds, wild and garden-grown, but we did not, or at least on our farm, have any large tree fruits... crabapples don't count.  But here I am with a surfeit of fruit in my twilight years.  And I am adverse to all the work involved in making "preserves" in the traditional way.

You will not be finding this anytime in my 'back storage room':

 However, I heard from a friend about a friend's easy-peasy jam-making where he just did everything re the sterilizing in the oven.  That sounded like a good idea.  But specifics please!

And then I found a recipe for roasting plums on the internet-- roasting them to turn them into jam!  If you are a fan of roasted veggies (as I am), you will know that roasting holds the lovely primary and subtle flavours of food better than other methods, such as boiling.  So, with that recipe, I went to town, making a couple of adjustments for what I had in the house vs. what was called for in the recipe.

It starts with slicing up the plums and putting them on pans...

Look at the variation in colours!  Actually some of them were a little riper than others.  (That cream-coloured stuff is not butter or margerine, although it looks like it, but a whole grated lemon-- I freeze the lemons and then go through the arduous task of grating them in lieu of juicing-- yes, it is time-consuming.)  Notice that there are NO stones on the sheet above, just plum slices.

This pan of plum slices also includes the accompanying stone for each plum.  Reminiscent of Paul Simon's "Mother and Egg Reunion" in a very vegan-vague way.  Really, the plum stone is supposed to lend an almond-like (?) flavour to the jam.  Although, DO REMEMBER to remove the stones before you put the jam in the jar.

By this time, I am already salivating, loving roasted vegetables as must as I do. And I also love home-made jam, so it seems fairly likely that this will be a hit for me.

Oh, yes. yes. yes.  This is the real stuff, this roasted plum jam.  You have to try it.  The recipe is written out for you just below a couple more pictures of this caramelized, jammy jam.  I used Coconut Sugar to get the caramelized flavour.  You can go with whatever sugar you want!  Sugar is sugar (and apparently 'date sugar' is NOT sugar-- it is basically a whole food sweetener, being the dried and grated dates grated up to resemble some sugars... although it is much healthier, being a whole food and not a "refined" food.)

Hello! This is the finished product on Portofino Bakery's whole wheat toast.  It's not dainty, but it is DELICIOUS and that really counts for us:

INGREDIENTS:

1. 4 pounds/2 kg Italian (prune) plums
2. 200 g (7 oz) caster sugar (original recipe)- or other sugar-- I used Coconut Sugar
3. Juice of 1 lemon (I used whole grated frozen lemon)
4. Black Pepper in grater for pan #1
5. 3 small jam jars with lids, sterilized in dishwasher or in oven

PREP:

1. Preheat your oven to 200C/400F
2. Cover 2 cookie sheets (or bake sheets of some sort) with parchment paper.
3. Slice up about 4 pounds (about 2 kg) of Italian (prune) plums.  Stone each of them, and place them side up and side down (or all up, as I did) on both pans, 2 pounds per pan (1 kg).  On the second pan, place stones throughout in empty spaces.  
4. Spinkle/spoon half the lemon juice (or grated puree) and half the sugar over the plums in each pan.
5. Grate black pepper over the plums in pan #1.
6. Either time the jars to be sterilized in your dishwasher (to come out at about the time your jam is ready-- about 30-40 minutes) or in your oven.  Please use directions online re warming the jars in the oven to co-ordinate with your hot jam being ladled into a hot jar.  I find the dishwasher idea to be pretty workable-- just remember to use the highest washing setting (*sterilize* on my dishwasher) and time to co-ordinate the sterilizing ending with the the jam coming out of the oven.  If you have any doubts about this, you might be better off just keeping your jam in the fridge vs. on the shelf in your pantry.  The jam done properly on a shelf can last for 1 year.  In the fridge, probably about a similar length of time.  It doesn't get a chance to sit around in our house.  As soon as you open it, refrigerate it after that.
7. While jars AND jam are both hot, wearing oven mitts, carefully spoon the jam into the jars.  Jab it gently into the jars, making sure there are no air pockets.
8. Seal the jars you are not going to eat from
9. Enjoy!!  This is our current favourite jam: oven- roasted plum jam!

You can also make roasted apricot jam using the same method as above! YUMMY
                 

 You might also enjoy: Yummy Quick and Easy Fig Jam