Seckel Pear Ginger Jam

 Yeah.   Seckel pears are just cute.    All red and green and tiny and smelling of musky adventures in crowded cafes. 

These are not your everyday pears.   These are something special.

When I found some late harvest boxes of these I had to get one.    They're Washington pears - marketed as Sugar Pears.

The truth is, they weren't very sweet - picked too green, I expect - but once cooked up, they were divine, divine, divine.

I used the whole box to make some Pear-Ginger Jam.

[Note:  This recipe can easily be made with plain old canned pears from the store.   Way easier and faster.]

I peeled and chopped the whole 4 lb box and ended up with about 8 cups of fruit.   Since pears are usually pretty hard when I do them, I boil them in half as much water as fruit.    8 cups of fruit boiled in 4 cups of water.   Cook them until soft.   They'll turn a lovely golden pink.  

While the pears are cooking, chop up the crystalized ginger.   I like finer bits of ginger, so I take my time and make it small.   I use 2 tablespoons of chopped ginger for every cup of pears.   8 cups of pears, 1 cup of chopped ginger.    You can use less if you like less of a gingery punch.

Once they're soft,  I added 1 tablespoon of low/no sugar pectin for every cup of fruit that I started with.   8 cups of fruit, 8 tablespoons of pectin.

Note bene [This is Latin for Pay Attention!]:  Don't dump pectin in boiling liquid.   It clumps.   I hate that.    Either mix it in a cup of cold water, or sprinkle it daintily into the pot while stirring.   Try not to get it on the stirring utensil.  I'd have said spoon, but I use a big flat end spatula to stir my jam with, and I always get it all over the spatula when I sprinkle.   I much prefer mixing the pectin in cold water.

Once the pectin is in there, bring it to a hard rolling boil.    Boil it hard for 1 minute.  

After the pectin has boiled hard, I add the sugar and the chopped ginger.   I use half as much sugar as fruit.   8 cups of fruit, 4 cups of sugar.    That plus the candied ginger makes it plenty plenty sweet.

Bring it back to a boil - a hard rolling boil - and let it boil for 1 minute.   Take it off the heat, ladle into jars.    I processed in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes to seal up the jars. 

You can easily cut this recipe down:

4 cups cooked or canned fruit [with the juice]
1/2 cup candied ginger, chopped
4 tablespoons low sugar pectin
2 cups sugar

[...and you can cut that in half again, if you like.]


Looking for more great jam recipes?   Check out my ebook:  A Simple Jar of Jam  at www.rurification.etsy.com.   You can preview the book by clicking the link on the sidebar.  Every purchase helps support this site.  Thank you!

Pear Brown Sugar Cardamom Jam

 Pears are a lovely vehicle for all sorts of flavors.   They meld well. 

They're good with all sorts of spices.  They're good with white sugar and maple syrup and honey and brown sugar.   Here's a simple recipe that uses brown sugar and a bit of cardamom.  

The cardamom might knock you over when you add it, but don't despair.   After a day or so, it falls in line with the other flavors.  This was a big hit at our house.  

Pear Brown Sugar Cardamom Jam

• 4 cups cooked pears
• 1 cup water
• 4 tablespoons Dutch Jell All Natural Lite pectin
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom

Combine the pears, water and pectin in a pot. Stir constantly.  Bring to a hard rolling boil that you can't stir down.   Boil one minute. Add sugar and cardamom and return to hard rolling boil.   Boil one minute.   Ladle into jars.

Pears

We have some wonderful friends with a pear tree who bring us a box of pears in the fall.    God bless generous friends.  I heart them.

I also heart free food.

But I have a real problem waiting for pears to ripen.   My floor can attest.  [Details here]  So, generally, when I get a load of pears, I corral the family and we spend a couple of hours peeling and paring and then I cook up a big pot of pears at once.   Even the hard ones.

It's just easier that way.

And then I have a gallon or so of soft cooked pears in the fridge so I can make fast jams when I have time.   I love that.

I put a lot of water in the pot because I'm famous for burning pear stuff.   Famous.  Of course, because I use so much water when I cook the pears, I get a lovely layer of pear juice when I'm done, which I use for pear jelly.

Pear Jelly is easy and lovely and the queen should be so lucky to have this as a filling in her tea cakes.  

Here's a recipe for a small batch:

Pear Jelly
2 cups pear juice [or the leftover 'water' that you get when you cook pears up]
2 tablespoons Ball Low Sugar pectin
1 cup sugar

Mix juice and pectin.  Heat to boil.  Boil 1 minute.   Add sugar.  Return to boil.   Boil one minute.   Ladle into jars.  Makes 1 pint.

Pear Plum Crisp

First of all, let me be clear.   I believe in dessert for breakfast.   Especially fruit stuff.  Fruit desserts are much easier to rationalize for breakfast than, say, chocolate cake.

So we have a lot of pies and crisps for breakfast. 

Crisps are easy because all you have to do is cut up the fruit, sprinkle on some sugar if you need it and toss on a topping.   Easy squeezy.

We had a few plums in the fridge that needed to be eaten, but there were only five of them.   I cut them up anyway but I needed something else to add to it.  A can of pears!

And we have a jar of tapioca granules that I picked up at Freedom Country Store, just north of Worthington.  Tapioca granules make good thickener.

This is what I did:

Pear-Plum Crisp

• 1 can pears [29 oz.] in heavy syrup
• 5 plums, cut up and seeded
• 2 Tablespoons tapioca granules [or flakes]

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease the bottom of an 8x8 pan or casserole dish.   Put plums in the bottom of the dish.    Open the can of pears and put a few of the pears on the plums, leaving the syrup.   Stir the tapioca granules into the syrup and pour over the fruit.    Sprinkle on the crisp topping.  Bake for 50 minutes or until bubbling and browned.   Serves 9.

Crisp Topping

• 1/4 C sugar
• 1/2 C flour
• 1/2 C oats
• 1/4 C butter
• dash cinnamon
• dash salt

Mix everything together with a pastry blender or food processor.  I always use the pastry blender.  Eric always uses the food processor.   I told him it's a guy/power tool thing.  He told me it's a 20th century kind of thing and since we're now in the 21st century, I'd better catch up.

Whatever.

If you use the pastry blender, leave the oats out until everything else is chopped up nicely.   Then stir in the oats.   Eric says if you just use the food processor, you don't have to remember to leave the oats out.  You can just toss it all in.

He's got a point. 


Note:  Even with the 2 Tablespoons of tapioca, it could still have been a bit thicker.   If you want thick, then bump up the tapioca to 3 Tablespoons instead of two.

Pear Maple Jam

Here's a quick and easy jam recipe for a holiday brunch.   There is just enough maple to enhance the pear, but not overpower it.  

Pear Maple Jam 

• 6 cups cooked pears  [6 fresh pears]
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 3 Tablespoons Ball Low Sugar Pectin
• 3 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup real maple syrup

Cook the pears, if you haven't already.   Yes, you need to peel and core them.  

Add the lemon juice and pectin to the cooked pears, stirring constantly if the pears are still hot.   You don't want pectin clumps! 

Heat to a hard boil.    A really, really hard boil.   It matters.   It should be a raging boil even when you're stirring energetically.  

Keep it at a hard boil for 1 minute.

Add sugar and maple syrup.    Return to a really, really hard boil.   Boil hard for 1 minute.  

That's it!  Ladle into jars and process for canning.

Troubleshooting:
If you can't get fresh pears, use canned ones.  [I'd use 3 small cans or 2 larger ones.  Don't worry about being exact.  It'll be close enough.  Really.]  Try to find some without sugar.

If you have canned pears in syrup [even light syrup], then DON'T add the pectin to the pears. 

In a small saucepan, dissolve the pectin in 1 1/2 cups of water.   Boil it hard for 1 minute!  [It won't take long.]

Put the pears and syrup in a large pot and mash them some. Then add the pectin goo to the pears.

Add the sugar MINUS 1/2 cup or so [minus 1 cup if they were in heavy syrup] - there's already some sugar in the canned pear syrup, so you don't need to add as much now.

Boil it all hard for 1 minute.    Ladle into jars and process for canning.

Pear-Plum Vanilla Jam

This is heaven in a bottle.  

Seriously. 

So, I'll cut right to the chase.  I can tell you don't want me to prologue this with a funny story or witty repartee.   Ahem.

Pear-Plum Vanilla Jam

• 3 cups cooked pears [3-4 fresh pears]
• 2 cups cooked plums [2-3 large plums or 3-4 small plums]
• 2 1/2 Tablespoons Ball Low-Sugar Pectin powder
• 1 vanilla bean
• 4 cups sugar
• 2+ Tablespoons blackberry syrup [or other berry juice/syrup to make it a pretty color]

If you have fresh pears and plums,  peel, de-seed and chop them up.   Put them in a big pot with just enough water that they won't burn if you don't stir them every second.   Cook them until soft.

Once the fruit is cooked,  sprinkle in the pectin.   Pectin will clump when it hits hot liquid, so if you've just cooked the fruit and it's hot, then stir constantly as you put in the pectin.    Trust me.

Boil the fruit and pectin.

While you're waiting for that stuff to boil,  slice your vanilla bean in half longways.   With a spoon, open up one end of one of the halves and scrape the seeds down the pod and out into the fruit and pectin.   Do that with the other half, too, while you're at it. 

Let the fruit and vanilla come to a hard boil.   A really hard boil.   Hard boil for 1 minute.

Add the sugar and berry syrup and return it to a hard boil.  Be patient.   Meditate while you wait.  Ponder the splatters on the wall behind your stove where you can't reach them.   Practice letting go of the OCD that has just seized you.   Really.   This jam will taste just fine even if that wall has spatters on it.

Hard boil that jam for 1 minute.    Ladle into jars and process for canning.  

Then find a step stool that'll let you reach those splatters behind the stove.   

Pear Ginger Perfection

It's pear season.    

I heart pears.  

Mostly, I heart pears in Pear Ginger Jam.

I heart Pear Ginger Jam. 

This year, I got some pears right off of my mom's tree.   I've never picked pears before.  We usually get them from generous friends.

When we saw them ripening on the tree, my first question was:  How do you know when they're ripe?    None of us knew, so I looked it up.

I heart Google.

Turns out that pears ripen from the inside out.    That means that by the time they're soft on the tree, they're way too ripe in the middle.     You have to pick them before they get soft.

But when?

When they've gone from rock hard to just a bit of give when you push your thumb on it.    Hold it in your hand and put your thumb on it.   Push.   If there's a bit of give, it's OK to pick. 

Also,  pears hang down on their stems.   If you hold the pear and lift it up horizontally, the stem should separate from the tree easily.    If the pear doesn't come off easily, then leave it.  

It's true.   Want to read more?  Go here or here.  Note:  Bosc and Asian pears behave differently.  If you're picking those, then do more research.

Because I have No Patience when it comes to ripening fruit in boxes all over my house [remind me someday to tell you about the year we had a box of pears rot on the floor because we forgot about them.   The wood floor is permanently stained.   It's an attractive stain, but it would have been nicer if it were that color all over the floor and not just where the box was.]  I cook my pears right away now.

Yes, I cut them when they're too hard to cut.   I risk life and limb and digit trying to carve out the core.  Then I put them in a big pot with some water and cook the living daylights out of them until they're really really soft. 

Then I make Pear Ginger Jam.   Because I heart Pear Ginger Jam.

Really.   Just look at that picture.   Do you blame me?    It's perfection in a jar.

Pear Ginger Jam

• 5 or 6 cups of cooked pears.   Cooked until they're soft. 
• 3 T Ball pectin [1 pkg]
• 5 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup candied ginger, chopped as fine as you want.

Combine the pears and pectin.   Bring to hard boil.  Boil one minute.   Add sugar and candied ginger.  Return to hard boil.  Boil one minute.    Ladle into jars and process for canning.

Troubleshooting:   First a confession.   Often, I have too much fruit for a recipe.   I try to add as much fruit and as little pectin as I can get away with.    This time was no exception.   And whoops! my jam didn't set.  It got sort of thickened, but not jam like.   I figured that it just didn't get hot enough in the pot I was using. 

Tip:  Use a pot with a wide bottom - more surface area next to the heat source.

We kept some of the non thick stuff to use for pancake topping.   The rest I took out of the jars and dumped back in a pot and heated it until it reached a hard boil and I let it boil for a few minutes.   I could tell that it had finished thickening.   I poured it back into the jars [I did lose some volume because more of the water boiled out of the jam], put new lids on and sealed them again.    Perfect thick jam.

My point is this.   Experiment if you want to.   Don't panic if things don't come out perfectly.   It's not a contest.  There is no Permanent Record.  It's food.   It's supposed to be fun.  If you use your head and adjust things a bit, you can probably fix it.  Ask around, join a forum like the one at Chickens in the Road, or ask me in a comment.    Chances are someone will have some tip to help you. 

Happy preserving!