Henny Penny Farmette

A favorite breakfast on our farmette includes hot bread (like biscuits or popovers), slathered in butter and spread with homemade jam. We have many fruit trees from which to make jam but we love the sweet tartness of wild plums. These wild plums are smaller than regular plums or apricots, so you’ll need to pick enough to fill about a gallon-size bucket.

This sweet-tart jam makes the perfect accompaniment to croissants, toasts, muffins, and biscuits

You’ll love this delicious jam spread on almost any kind of bread, roll, or cracker. Serve it alongside some firm breakfast cheese or your favorite goat cheese. Because of the balance between sweet and tart flavors, it greatly enhances the taste of roast pork or chicken, too.

Making wild plum jam doesn’t require a lot of skill. But you will need some simple kitchen tools like a tall pan (like a soup pot), a large bowl, measuring spoons, a colander, long-handle wooden spoon (for stirring hot jam), and a paring knife.

Pictured a jars with lids and rings–the type used in canning jellies and jams.

Required items include a hot-water canner, six or seven preserving jars with lids and rings, and a jar-filling cup, a jar lifter, a foam skimmer, and a magnetized ring lifter. If you don’t already have them, purchased these items in a hardware or diy store where canning jars and utensils are sold.

The smallest plums we picked have tart skin but sweet flesh

The PREP steps:

1. Start by picking the fruit and sorting out those plums with blemishes or bird pecked holes.

2. Wash the fruit.

3. Remove the stones. (I use a big bowl for this so I can save the pitted plums along with their juice to make the jam).

The JAM COOKING process.

1. Place 5 cups pitted plums with their juice in a large, deep pot.

2. Squeeze juice of one-half lemon into the pot.

3. Add 4 cups sugar. Stir to mix the ingredients.

4. Bring to a boil and stir constantly for 15 to 20 minutes or until the gel stage is reached. Skim off foam, if necessary.

5. Slowly and carefully stir in five tablespoons of Classic Pectin powder. Mix well. (You can test the gel consistency using a metal spoon chilled in the freezer. The jam should slowly roll to the edge and hang together instead of running off like water.) Remove jam pot from heat.

6. Ladle the hot jam into sterilized jars. Place a lid on each jar and then screw on the rings.

7. Place in the boiling water of a hot-water canner and process for 15 minutes.

8. Remove each jar of jam and listen for the pop of each lid. Let cool in a draft-free area. Label and store.

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An amazing wild plum tree sprouted up and grew tall at the back of our property with a full canopy of gorgeous burgundy leaves. This, without any attention or coddling from us. It’s now three-years-old and loaded with red plums.

Making a test batch of a few jars is advised when you are not sure about a fruit jam

The fruit itself is quite juicy and sweet, but the skins are tart. I made a small test batch of five jars and then waited 24 hours to sample the jam. After I tasted the test jam and realized how exquisitely delicious it was, I vowed to can at least a couple dozen jars.

I got out cases of unopened jars and lids and ran the jars through a hot water wash cycle in my dishwasher. Then I rinsed the plums under water and pitted them before making the fruit into jam. My plan is to not only enjoy eating the jam throughout the summer and fall but to pack jars of it into food baskets for holiday giving this year.

This jam is perfect for spreading on a slice of toast or a croissant. The sweet-tart taste means it would nicely accompany chicken or pork. The taste is sweet but tangy. The texture is lighter and smoother than strawberry.

The smallest dab of this fruity jam goes well with a little goat cheese on toasted sourdough

RECIPE: WILD PLUM JAM

Ingredients:

5 cups wild plums (washed and pitted)

3 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup water

5 Tablespoons Classic Pectin

Directions:

Place the pitted plums into a large cooking pot and add all ingredients except pectin.

Stir well to combine.

Cook on high and bring the plums to gelling point. Stir constantly for 15 minutes as mixture thickens.

Sprinkle in the pectin by spoonfuls and stir after each addition to mix well.

Ladle jam into hot jars. Leave about 1/4-inch at the top. Attach lids and screw rings and then process in boiling water for 20 minutes according to your canner instructions.