stone fruit strawberry black pepper jam
quintessential summer time jam, originally posted August 21, 2022
I am someone who when I visit the farmer’s market during stone fruit season- I enter a fugue state and buy pounds and pounds of any variety of plum, pluot, apricot or peach available. I am also the type of person who forgets about all the beautiful fruit she buys until it’s very wrinkly and sad. I’ll put the fruit and freezer until I have enough to make some jam with. And this right here is my favorite combination: mostly plum varieties and strawberries. A single greengage plum, a few cherrums, a mirabelle or two, some dapple dandys. No matter what you’e got- you’ll end up with something beautiful.
For stone fruit jams I typically use 48-52% the weight of my fruit in sugar. It depends on the over all sweetness of the fruit at the time of jamming. Since it was pretty uhhh long gone and forgotten they were on the sweeter side so i stuck to 48%. Taste your fruit and adjust based on what you think it needs! I also typically use 2-4% of the weigh of the fruit in acid- this go round I used some champagne vinegar.
The best way to enjoy this jam is on your bready carb of choice with a healthy amount of SALTED butter. It also pairs beautifully with olive oil chiffon cake- or really any olive oil based cake.
You can add as much or as little black pepper to your jam as you’d like. Yes, that means you can add none if you don’t want fresh cracked pepper in your jam. But I promise it’s worth trying at least once.
Ingredients:
565 grams stone fruits of choice
225 grams strawberries
160 grams honey (I used avocado honey)
110 grams granulated sugar
20 grams lemon juice
2 grams FRESH cracked black pepper- I’m begging you not to use the pre ground stuff- the flavor is not the same.
Directions:
First things first, wash your fruit. And if you’re like me and you store your fruit in the freezer until it takes up all the free space you have- wash and dry it before freezing.
Place all of your ingredients in a bowl and evenly coat in the sugar. Cover with plastic and set in the fridge for about 30 minutes. This step is optional but the sugar will begin to pull out the moisture in the fruit and this liquid can help to avoid scorching later on. but not 100% necessary.
Add everything in to a pot over medium-low heat. I like cooking jams low and slow to preserve the structural integrity of the fruit- just because I love chunks of fruit in jam (-:
You’ll cook this down, stirring occasionally at first. But once things start to thicken up you’ll stir more frequently to avoid the jam burning.
Your jam is done when it passes the freezer test. The bubbling will also slow down considerably- with each bubble taking a second to pop. There will also be less steam as a majority or the moisture has boiled off.
Transfer jam into clean containers, leaving 3/4 inch of headroom. Let cool completely. Cover, label, and refrigerate up to 1 month, or freeze up to a year.
For resources and information on how to can your own jam i’d recommend Camilla Wynne’s book Jam Bake.
Hi Kassie, I’ve been meaning to experiment with pink peppercorn and thought to try it on this recipe. I’ve never used pink peppercorn before and wanted your thoughts on how to replace instead of black peppercorn- same amount? Also, I’m going to use as filling on earl gray cake. Not sure what buttercream would pair well. I welcome ideas. Thanks!