Summer Preserves

The corner fruit market at this time of year makes me very happy. Raspberries, strawberries, sugar plums, juicy peaches and golden apricots. All from Ontario and all in season right now. Now is the time to put up some preserves for later on, when nothing is growing here except the eyes on my potatoes.

Apricot Jam with early grey and lavender

I always liked getting large chunks of fruit in my jam. If you cook them just enough to set the pectin, they keep their bite and have great texture.
I started with my flavoring: simple syrup steeped with cinnamon, lavender and early grey tea. I wanted something floral and sweet to compliment the rich fruit, and bergamont and lavender flowers seemed a perfect match. By making a syrup first, I could control the level of spice without over doing the whole batch. It also makes it easer to strain off the solids so that you don’t have to pick them out later (which would be next to impossible with lavender flowers).



I cooked out the apricots, cut in half, with a little sugar to release some of the juices. Once softened I took out about 10% of the apricots, added some sugar mixed with about a tablespoon of pectin, and blitzed to make sure it was fully dissolved. Bring that mix up to a boil and pour it over the cooked fruit. This is when you check your final seasoning by adding sugar and lemon. If you want you can do the old jelling test where you pour some jam onto a frozen plate to see if it stays put when you drag a finger through it. You get a sense of whether it will set because the bubbles get really big and slow from the resistance of the setting liquid. I put the halved fruit in jars and covered with the liquid. Steam process in the pressure cooker for 5 mins and cool. Blam, apricot jam.


Burbank plums in white wine


The plums were already very sweet and delicate, so the syrup I made was dry and I did not cook them out at all. The syrup is pretty simple: white wine, sugar, honey, water, ginger, cinnamon and sage from the garden. Bring the lot up to a boil and cook off the alcohol. I cooled the mix and strained it when it was steeped enough to taste the spice. Fill the jars with fruit, pour over the cold syrup and steam process for 2 mins. I have found with my setup that this is just enough time to seal the jars without cooking the fruit too much.


Ontario cherries in red wine

My chef has a mulled cherry on the menu at the moment with schezuan peppers and long pepper. I like the spice but prefer a little sweeter flavour so instead of long pepper I added a Tonka bean (which gives a vanilla and almond background note). Basically bring up equal parts of red wine, sugar and water with basil stems, schezuan pepper, Tonka, allspice, cinnamon and clove. Once you cook off the booze, add your cherries (which were amazingly sweet to begin with) and cook really slowly until the flavours have permeated and the fruit is soft. Make sure to cover them with parchment (or a plate in my case) to keep them submerged. Jar and steam process for 5 mins.


I can’t wait to pop the seal in the dead of winter to get a little tasted of the summer. The cherries would make a great pie filling, ice cream base or garnish for cheese. The plums and syrup are going to be great on a simple sponge cake with the syrup poured over top. The apricots…Im going to have for breakfast tomorrow on toast.