One…Two…That’s All it Takes! There’s Not Even a Three!

One of my favorite memories is having a tea party with my elegant friends, and spreading scones with deep purple jam and clotted cream. And while that homemade jam is but a distant memory, I can still see the jewel-like color and taste it on the hot buttery scone, mixing with the cool white cream…and the amazing news is, we can make some right at home with only TWO ingredients. Two, people!

This recipe is neat because it has some properties of jam, and some of preserves. The best of both worlds! It still has some of it’s preserve-like plum chunks, but it’s nice and thick and spreads beautifully.

It would be incredible on pancakes, crepes, toast or English muffins, in the middle of thumbprint cookies, as a cheesecake topping, and inside pastry bites.

Ingredients:
1 or 2 pounds of plums
1/4 cup rapadura

Directions:
Cut your plums in half and put them in a large mixing bowl. Sprinkle the rapadura over them, and using a spoon, stir until the plums are all coated.

Let the plums and rapadura sit at room temperature together for about one hour, so that the rapadura starts to dissolve just a little. Transfer the mixture in to a large cooking pot.
Place it on the stove uncovered and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Make sure if you see a light boil to stir because the whole pot may not be boiling, just the center. If it stops boiling after you stir it, continue boiling until everything is uniformly bubbling, then simmer for 10 minutes and turn off the heat. Let the pot stand uncovered until it is just warm to the touch or reaches room temp.

Repeat the last step three times, bringing the number of times you’ve boiled and cooled it up to the total of four. The last time, you will want to bring it to a boil at a lower temperature and stir more often to keep it from scorching.

The fourth and final time, you will need to transfer it to sterile jars while it’s still boiling hot. You can sterilize jars by running them through your dishwasher on the sterilization setting, or washing them by hand in extremely hot water and soap, and rinsing very well. Boil the lids and rings.

Once you put the plum preserves into the jars, leaving about 1/2 of clearance at the top, screw on the lids and put the jars into a boiling water bath, making sure there is at least one inch of water over top of them. Leave them there for ten minutes, pull them out, flip them upside-down and let them cool like so. Ta-da!

You have beautiful, vibrant, delicious plum preserve jam to eat yourself or give away as gifts! It’s a beauteous thing. :)