In nature, the time of ripening oranges and plums occurs at different times.
An orange is a tropical fruit and the season of its mass gathering begins immediately after the end of the ripening period of the plum, the “inhabitant” of temperate latitudes.
But due to the high yield of citruses and excellent properties, allowing long-term storage of the crop, in our supermarkets they are abundant all year round.
It is not known to whom the idea belongs, to cook jam from plums with orange for the winter, but this person is not devoid of taste, because the plum goes well with citruses.
These two fruits even have spicy spices, which both can serve as excellent companions, for example, vanilla and cinnamon - the most commonly used combinations in the preparation of desserts and drinks based on oranges and plums.
As for the technology of boiling jam, this process is generally understood by everyone, but many women often cook without thinking about the physical and chemical laws that people use in everyday life, and the success of culinary skill depends on an understanding of the processes occurring during mechanical and heat treatment of products.
In cooking, little things do not happen, as in any science. Closely related to it is biology, chemistry, and physics. If you want to achieve success in culinary business, remember the natural sciences more often, because understanding their laws will help you cook the jam and cook any dish without mistakes, on the first try.
Orange plum jam - basic technological principles
The puree mass of fruit and sugar is jam, and the jam is the pieces of fruit in syrup. The technology of cooking jam is a tradition of Slavic cuisine. Note that as long as sugar was an expensive and hard-to-reach product, jam was cooked with honey. This information is for those who want to know the taste of this ancient Russian dessert.
At first glance, cooking jam does not pose any difficulties, but not every hostess can cook whole slices or slices in a clear syrup. Sometimes, instead of jam, it turns out sweet puree mass - tasty, but it does not look so tempting.
How to get beautiful, whole slices in jam of plums with orange?
Many housewives use the method of multiple boiling fruit in their own juice, pre-sprinkling them with sugar, this is the so-called five-minute jam. This method is quite suitable when the fruits have sufficient density so as not to boil softly at the first stage. Too dense fruits, poorly emitting juice, dissolve sugar for too long.
The following method of cooking involves the preliminary preparation of sugar syrup, in which fruits are dipped and boiled until fruit juice is combined with syrup. This stage needs to be treated with maximum attention, and even to take a scientific approach, remembering what diffusion of liquids is, their density. The quality of ready-made jam depends on how high the concentration of sugar is in the syrup and in the intercellular juice.
According to the laws of physics, a dense liquid (syrup), penetrating a less dense medium (cellular juice in fruits), displaces it, completely replacing with itself. This process contributes to the increase in temperature. Sugar displaces fluid from the cell, which passes into the intercellular space of the fetus. Ideally, it is necessary for sugar to penetrate the cell more quickly, and the intercellular juice in parallel to enter the intercellular space a little slower to ensure the normal density of the fetus, in a 1: 1 ratio.
At a temperature of 100 degrees the intracellular juice boils, which creates an obstacle to the penetration of sugar into the inside of the cell, but as a result, after cooling, the moisture is lost, leaving the steam. A vacuum is formed inside the fruit and its cells, which draws in sugar. Therefore, it is necessary to alternate between boiling and cooling in order to create a vacuum effect. Cooking should take place at a temperature close to the boiling of the juice. Fruits should be lowered into a syrup heated to 80-85 ° C - the temperature difference will facilitate the rapid replacement of juice in the intercellular space.
There is another nuance to which attention should be paid: for almost all grades of plums, the concentration of sugar in the syrup should be 25-40%, and for citrus fruits - 70-75%. In this case, the fastest and most convenient way is to find the arithmetic average of the ratio, that is, we sum up two indicators and divide the value by two. We get the amount of sugar per kilogram of prepared raw materials - 52.5%, that is - 525 g. The remaining technical details - preparation of hot and dry sterile containers, hot spill of ready-made jam from plums with orange, immediate closing and wrapping of cans with jam - are familiar to every hostess, therefore we proceed to the preparation of jam from plums with citrus notes.
Recipe 1. Plum jam with orange juice and zest
Composition:
- Renklod Plums 1 kg
- Oranges 4-5 pieces.
- Sugar 1,150 kg
Preparation:
Prepare oranges: cut the skin off with washed fruit with a sharp knife, trying not to touch the white part under a thin orange layer. You can remove the skin on the grater, but in the jar of jam of orange plums for the winter will look more beautiful thin and long straw of orange peel.
For the preparation of sugar syrup, we use the juice of oranges, which are removed from the peel. Syrup should be thick, so the juice and sugar cook in a ratio of 50/50. 750-800 ml of juice can be obtained from one kilogram of oranges, so for a syrup of 1,150 kg of sugar you will need 1.35 kg of juicy citrus fruits. Boil the syrup from sugar and orange juice to a decrease of 1/3. Give a little cool, and immersed in it prepared slices of plums.
We select the dense plums, remove the stem. For a couple of hours, leave them in a strong soda solution. In industrial canning, a more active solution of caustic soda is used, but, in order to avoid injuries and burns, you should not succumb to such temptation. Soda, as a solvent of fat, removes a touch of essential oils from the surface of the fruit, drying the skin of the plums, and this, in turn, leads to the expansion of pores and contributes to easier penetration of sugar into the pulp of the fruit. Baking soda acts just like caustic, but a little slower, but safer. After the soda bath, thoroughly wash the plums, cut it in half and remove bones. Plums bring to a boil 2-3 times, but do not boil in the finished orange syrup. At the last cooking add orange zest.
Recipe 2. Orange jam with orange in the oven
Composition:
- Orange slices, peeled 0.5 kg
- Plum “Ugorka” 500 g
- Sugar 0.525 kg
Preparation Method:
Prepared slices of oranges and plums (the process of preparing plums is in recipe No. 1), pin down with a needle and fold into a heat-resistant dish with a non-stick coating, sprinkle with sugar each layer. Cover and place in a cool place. When the juice noticeably protrudes, put the pot without a lid in the preheated oven (200-220 ° C) and let stand the jam until boiling. After take out the container and lower it into the prepared basin with ice water. Gently mix the syrup, trying not to mash the berries, and again put the dishes in the oven. Do this operation three times. For the third time, bring the syrup to a boil, turn off the oven, and cover the jam with a lid, and do not reach it until it cools. Pack cold in sterile jars, sprinkling the surface with a layer of sugar. Put parchment under the lid, seal the cork tightly and store it in the closet.
Recipe 3. Plum jam with orange for the winter, on honey
Composition:
- Cherry plum, yellow 1.5 kg
- Orange juice 750 ml
- Honey 0.5 kg
Preparation:
Ripe cherry plum sort and wash, and then blanch in boiling water for up to five minutes, and shift, immediately, in cold water. Cut the berries into halves, remove the bones.
Bring orange juice to boil and put honey (buckwheat) in it. Remove foam to transparency. Then immerse the berries for 10 minutes. Immediately pour the jam into hot jars and cork.
Recipe 4. “Botex” for fruits - orange plum jam
Composition:
- Orange syrup 0.5 l
- Plum, honey (yellow) 1.0 kg
Preparation:
Sink plums and wash. Put them on a flat dish in one layer and freeze. Meanwhile, boil a syrup of equal amounts of sugar and orange juice. Boil down syrup and sample “on a thin string,” then separate 300-350 ml of syrup, and continue to boil the rest, reducing its volume by 30%. Sparse syrup, at a temperature of 45-50 ° C, type in a medical syringe and dice off frozen plums with a bone, putting them in a saucepan with thick syrup. Let stand up to equalize the temperature, and then boil it to 95-98 ° C, and immediately seal. Place parchment paper under the covers.
Recipe 5. “Dry jam” from plums with orange for the winter
Composition:
- Oranges 1 kg
- Plums (large) 1.4 kg
- Vanilla 5 g
- Sugar 1.2 kg
- Water 1.0 l
Preparation:
Boil a very thick syrup by adding vanilla. Prepare the oranges, cut them into slices. Cool the syrup to 80-85 ° C, and put orange slices in it for 10 minutes. After remove from the stove, and wait for complete cooling. On a sheet covered with foil, put the slices in a single layer and dry in a preheated oven at 40 ° C.
Prepare the plums: sort them, blanch them for 5 minutes in boiling water, then dip them in cold water and, after cooling, cut them into slices to remove bones. Heat the syrup in which the oranges were boiled, put the plums into it, boil until boiling. Just like slices of oranges, dry in the oven.
Put dried fruit in jars, sprinkled with sugar, and store, without allowing moisture, at room temperature.
Recipe 6. Caucasian jam of plums with orange for the winter
Composition:
- Ginger, grated 20 g
- Cinnamon 2 g
- Walnut (kernels, peeled) 100 g
- Plum “Hungarian” or “Renklod” 1 kg
- Orange zest 50 g
- Orange slices 1.2 kg
- Water 1 l
- Sugar 1.3 kg
Preparation:
Prepare the fruit: remove the seeds from the plums, remove the zest from the oranges, cut it into thin strips, and pierce the peeled slices with a wooden toothpick in several places. In a thick syrup, lower the plums first and then the orange slices. Bring to a boil and cool quickly by placing the pan and jam in a basin of ice water. Warm up again to a temperature close to boiling, add zest, ginger, cinnamon and nuts. Stir and remove from heat. Pack in hot jars and store in a cool place.
Orange Plum Jam - Tips and Tricks
- Cook the jam, stirring it and removing the foam, only with a wooden spoon or spatula. Metal spoons affect the color of the fruit.
- To prevent the sugar from becoming candied, add citric acid to the syrup, one teaspoon per kilogram of sugar.
- The quality of sugar and fruits depends on the transparency of the syrup, the formation of foam. Sugar has the best qualities pressed as it is more purified.
- If fruits are bought on the market and it is difficult to judge when they were picked, then stand them in cold water, then dry them. Such a method during cooking will reduce the formation of foam, help get rid of the possible presence of pesticides, and if the water is slightly salted, you can get rid of the moth.
