As we are camping as a family, we run into little treats now and then. Last September we ran into a whole area near a campground we were staying at along the road with ripe sand plums! We had never made sand plum jelly, we had always bought it at fairs and festivals. So my son and I decided to try our hand at making homemade sand plum jelly and it turned out amazing. With any wild sand plum jelly, this jelly is a little tart, it not your typical sweet store bought jelly. We took pictures along the way, because we kept questioning what it should look like, so we included those…so you won’t have to guess. Here is our recipe!
Ingredients
Sand Plums – As many as you can find, but we filled our 5 quart pot about 3/4 full
1 Box (1.75 oz) Fruit Pectin
7 1/2 cups sugar
Directions:
1. Wash the sand plums and pull off any stems or leaves you find, not necessary to get every little thing, as you are going to strain out the larger things anyway, but make sure they are clean and get as much as you can. Put the Sand Plums in a large heavy pot and cover with water, just enough to cover them completely. Cook them until they began to cook down to a pulpy mixture, about 30 minutes, stirring constantly
2. Line a strainer with 4 layers of cheese cloth and place over a bowl. Place plum mixture in strainer. Let stand for 30 minutes to allow all the liquid to strain through. We had to do some mixing around and swapped out the cheese cloth a second time to get all of the liquid out. You should have about 5 ½ cups liquid. If you have more or less, you will need to adjust your sugar (whew, thought you were going to get out of math!).
3. Return the liquid to the pan. Add the box of pectin; stir and bring to a boil. Add the 7 ½ cups sugar; bring to a full rolling boil. Boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and skim off any foam. Carefully pour (we used a funnel, actually we used a make shift funnel) hot mixture into hot sterilized jars (any size you want, we like the little ones so we can share!). Leave about ¼ space at the top of the jar.
Remove the air bubbles; wipe the rims and put the lids on. You may also have to remove more of the foam after you put them in the jars again.
5. Put entire jar in boiling water for 5 minutes, use a canner if you don’t have one like us, use your larges stock pot you have.
The jars will last in a dry cool play for up to 2 years, once you open them you will need to refrigerate them; after opening they will last about 3 months in the refrigerator. They don’t last that long at our house, but if you are not a plum jelly eater…this is good to know! Also a good reason to put them in smaller jars!
