There are more plums in the garden than can eaten, tasty though they are. So to find a new home for them some are being made into Jam (maybe a crumble and chutney later).

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I picked, washed, de-stoned and roughly chopped 1kg of plums from the garden. Then boiled with a splash of water, just enough to soften them, about 10mins. Then added 1kg of Jam sugar, tsp ground cinnamon, tsp ground ginger and the juice of half a lemon. Slowly letting the sugar dissolve without boiling, another 10mins or so. You can tell when the bottom of the pan stops going crunchy.

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Then I turned up the heat to get a rolling boil. After about 5 mins slid in the sugar thermometer, and waited till it got to 105C. I put all my jars, lids and other utensils in the dishwasher to sterilise them.

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Taking the jam off the heat and adding a knob of butter gets rid of the scum. Then I let it all cool for 15 mins, this lets it thicken ever so slightly and stops the fruit sinking to the bottom. Ladled it into jars and screwed the top on firmly. I hold the jars with a cloth as the jam is still quite hot.

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I make such a mess, so after I did the washing up, I went and designed some nice labels. Wait till they cool as the label won’t stick to a hot jar.