Quince Jam is SOUP. But I wanted Jam

17 years ago

So I harvested quinces from our tree with the intention to make Jam. I did this last and it turned out great. Last years recipe was a no-pectin recipe where I quartered the fruit and cooked it off with a good amount or organic white sugar. Came out thick with out any pectin.

This years recipe was to cook fruit twenty minutes, drain water core the fruit, mash it up in a processor and back to pot with drined water and honey for sweetner. Boil for ten minutes and then simmer to cook off water. I cooked it for about 45 minutes.

I used this recipe cause it seemed to contain less sugar than the last and remained that nice quince tart.

BUT...... it never setup. I now have eight mason jars of really good tasting quince sauce. But I want Jam.

So my questions are:

1. What is science behind this. Why did this not setup? Is raw suger better then honey for a non-pectin based jam.

2. Can I do anything at this stage to solidafy it. Add Pectin? freeze it. Anything.

thanks

bibbo

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Comments (2)

readinglady
17 years ago
If the recipe contains honey, adding commercial pectin won't help because (with the exception of Pomona's) honey+pectin=syrup.

Honey presents some challenges in jam-making. Generally it doesn't react with the fruit and acid in the same way as sugar. It has a different structure and the results will also be different.

Honey is acid. In one way it's an advantage in that it makes honey a less-hospitable environment for bacteria, but the acid in the honey can throw off the sugar-acid-pectin balance.

Honey is more liquid, and you have to cook the jam longer to a higher temperature than sugar to achieve a set.

So the best option at this point would be to put the jam back in the pan and cook it some more. It might be safest (less risk of over-cooking and getting a scorched or caramelized flavor) to put it in a shallow pan in the oven and a fairly low temp and cook it until it's the thickness you like. What you'd basically be doing is "dehydrating" the jam but it's the least-invasive best-control method for driving off any excess water remaining.

For future reference, the rule of thumb is with added pectin you can replace up to one cup of the sugar with one cup of honey. If its a "no-commercial-pectin" recipe, you can replace up to half the sugar with honey. Honey does have more sweetening power and at higher levels not only are there problems with the gel but also the flavor of the honey tends to mask the flavor of the fruit.

Good luck and let us know how things turn out.

Carol
annie1992
17 years ago
Bibbo, I agree with Carol, dump it back in a pan and cook it some more, either on the stovetop or in the oven.

I also had some issues with a plum/honey jam I made earlier this year. It contained only plums and honey but I wasn't happy completely with the flavor or the consistency. It didn't jell as well as I would like and the honey really covered the delicate yellow plums.

I do have a couple of jam recipes that I use honey in, but I tend to experiment carefully now, using honey a bit at a time to reach the flavor and consistency I want.

Annie
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Thank you for the advice and reassurance :) I tried it last night ... turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself! It is one of my first jams so I was fairly happy that it worked. I made 8 cups of fruit, and only used 1 package of pectin (which is only half what they recommend) but I figured that plums are a high-pectin fruit apparently and can be used without any pectin ... so I only put enough for the cherries. It "set" really well so I guess that was ok. I used basically the recipe I posted above except only 2 cups of sugar. It is certainly sweet enough like that but I was just worried because the sugar is meant to be the preservative, and I wanted there to be enough to be safe to store. If I used 2 cups of sugar with no-sugar-needed pectin and 8 cups of fruit, how long will it last on a shelf? Regular Jams usually seems to last a couple years, would this reduced-sugar option be less? I used allspice which was really nice with the plums and cherries. Tastes more like a fall jam than a summer one but that's ok ... it will keep till then. Next time I will try vanilla, that sounds incredible too!! Liqueurs are a great idea too, I hadn't even though of that aside from the Red Wine that was in one recipe I found. Thanks! I only had ground allspice but I understand what you mean about the cloudy jam ... mine doesn't seem to be (yet) but I will definitely keep that in mind and look for whole spices that can be removed :) So if I was going to use Sugar instead of Fruit Juice, would I just substitute it 1:1 Cup? The cherries seemed to be juicy enough without much added liquid so I don't think I'd need the juice for liquid. Next up (tonight hopefully) is Raspberry - Lemon Jam. Again, high pectin fruits so will try using 8 cups of fruit and only 1 pkg of no-sugar-needed pectin with 2 cups of sugar. Raspberries are pretty juicy too, I think.
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Quince Jam is SOUP. But I wanted Jam

Comments (2)

readinglady

annie1992

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