Apricot and Yellow Plum Jam

I saw a recipe for Apricot and Yellow Plum Jam in my cookbook, "250 Home Preserving Favorites" by Yvonne Tremblay that sounded interesting.

I took the basic idea and made changes because she used commercial pectin and lots of sugar.  I find most recipes with pectin have more sugar than I would like.  I don't like to make jam where you use more sugar than fruit.  It also used Apricot Brandy which I left out.

Ingredients
8 c apricots
8 c yellow plums
1 qt homemade pectin
1/2 c lemon juice
8 c sugar


Wash, half and pit apricots.  I used some greener apricots as I read fruit has more pectin then and you should use some under-ripe fruit when making jam.

I used the yellow plums on the greener side so had to cut them off the pit. Last year when they were very ripe in the Three Plum Jam http://mountaingardengleanings.blogspot.ca/2011/09/three-plum-jam.html, they seemed to be too juicy and took too long to boil down to jam.

I boiled the fruit together with the pectin and lemon juice until it was soft.

Then I added the sugar and boiled until it was jam.  Last year I used the cold saucer trick but this year I'm trying the thermometer.  You are to boil the jam until it reaches 220°F or 100°C.  Skim off foam and pour into sterilized jars.  Process for 10 minutes in hot-water bath.

The jam was very fragrant when cooking and was tasty when tested.  It is runnier than the Spiced Apricot Jam but that used apricot pulp so had less juice to boil down.  The recipe made 9 pints.