Jaboticaba Jam

So, our jaboticaba tree fruited like a maniac on steroids the other week.  It is a Brazilian rainforest tree, happily for us planted by the previous owner of our house.  It fruits twice a year (though a friend said they knew someone who had a tree that fruits four times a year).  The fruit grows all over the trunk and branches directly, so it looks really weird!  (As you may have seen in my most recent post.) 

I invited a friend over to pick some fruit, as he is a keen jam-maker, and a very keen forager.  He came over with a large bucket and picked heaps, but it made little difference to the fruits on the tree.  Soooo many fruits!  And the bats and possums must have been having a feast.  Mr P. and I did some house painting just near the tree and were nearly overwhelmed by the fermenting fumes.  I imagine incredibly alcoholic!  So drunken, crazy bats flying over!

here it is before the fruit ripened in the next couple of days!

The whole thing was done and dusted in about five days; it flowered, it fruited and they fell off!  There might be another harvest at Christmas time.  I have bags of fruit in the freezer for more jam-making in the future, anyway.

Original Recipe by Sherry:

ingredients:

420g./15 oz of apples and/or strawberries – strawberries lightly mashed, and apples grated or blitzed in the processor    see Notes

80g.-100g./3-3.5 oz or so of whole jaboticaba fruits – skin on (‘cos that’s where the pectin lies)

400g./14 oz caster sugar – half raw and half white caster – or use all white or all raw sugar

Juice from one lemon – maybe 2 Tbs?

1-2 big tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp rosewater

Big splash of spiced rum - optional, but delicious!

Method:

Put the fruit and sugar into a large saucepan and under a low heat, and bring to the boil while stirring, till sugar dissolves

Then turn up the heat, add the other ingredients, and boil rapidly for up to 10 minutes (watch out for splashes) – no more than ten, stirring often.  This stuff sets like concrete if you boil it too long!

Check for set from 8 minutes on!   i.e. – put a saucer in your freezer for ten minutes, spoon a small amount of the jam onto it, and if you can run your finger thru it after a few seconds, it is ready to go

Let it cool down a wee bit, so you are able to safely spoon out all the skins and seeds – tedious but necessary

Then spoon/pour the jam into sterilised jars (I put my jars in the dishwasher to get super clean!)

Keeps in the fridge – well, for ages!  Unless you eat it all first :=)

Notes:

I peeled my apples but you don't have to.  I used red apples 'cos they were lurking in my crisper, but you can use your fave apple!

If you have a lot of fruit still on the tree (and you will!), place them into a plastic freezer bag in a single layer (and you can freeze them for a couple of months, maybe more), and then when next making jam, let them thaw out and make the jam as above

tip the fruits and sugar into the saucepan

and let it boil! but only for 10 mins.! And stir it often

ooh it's so shiny and beautiful!

so delicious!

so enchanting! so mysterious! so pretty!

c. Sherry M.