Putting Food By - Janet Greene [130]
This natural pectin in the fruit can be activated only by cooking—but cooking quickly, both in heating the fruit to help start the juice, and later when juice or pulp is boiled together with the sugar. And too-slow cooking, or boiling too long, can reduce the gelling property of the pectin, whether natural or added.
In the old days, apple juice was added to less pectin-rich juices to make them gel, and this combination still works. Today, though, the readily available commercial pectins take the guesswork out of jellies, jams, and the like.
Testing for pectin content. There are several tests, but the simplest one uses ready-to-hand materials. In a cup, stir together 1 teaspoon cooked fruit juice with 1 tablespoon non-methyl alcohol. No extra pectin is needed if the juice forms one big clot that can be picked up with a fork. If the fruit juice is too low in pectin, it will make several small dabs that do not clump together. DON’T EVER TASTE THE SAMPLES. Alternatively, you can make a tiny test batch of the jelly (⅓ cup strained juice plus sugar and lemon juice proportionately as called for in the recipe) and see it if gels.
HOMEMADE LIQUID PECTIN
Liquid pectin is especially helpful in making peach, pear, strawberry, or other jellies whose fruit is low in pectin.
Four to 6 tablespoons of homemade pectin for every 1 cup of prepared juice should give a good gel: but experiment! These pectins can be frozen or canned for future use. Freeze in small quantities; can in ½-pints or pints, refrigerating after opening. To can, ladle hot into hot jars, leaving ½-inch of headroom; process at a simmering 185 F/85 C for 15 minutes. Remove from canner, cool upright and naturally.
Crabapple Pectin
2 pounds sliced unpeeled crabapples
3 cups water
Simmer, stirring, for 30 to 40 minutes adding water as needed. Plop into colander lined with one layer of cheesecloth and set over a bowl; press to force the juices. To clear, heat the collected juice and pour through a stout jelly bag that has been moistened in hot water. The result is the pectin you will can, or freeze, or use right away.
Tart Apple Pectin
4 pounds sliced apples with peels and cores
8 cups of water
Simmer, little stirring needed, for 3 minutes. Press apples through a sieve to remove cores, etc. Return liquid to a heavy kettle to cook briskly, stirring, until volume is reduced to one-half. Clarify by pouring through a stout jelly bag that has been moistened. Use, can, or freeze as above.
Acid
None of the fruits will gel or thicken without acid. The acid content of fruits varies, and, like natural pectin, is higher in underripe than in the fully ripe fruit.
Taste-test for acid content: this is a comparison. If the prepared fruit juice is not so tart as a mixture of 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 3 tablespoons water, and ½ teaspoon sugar, your juice needs extra acid to form a successful gel. A rule-of-thumb addition would be 1 tablespoon lemon juice or homemade citric acid solution (for how to make it, see Acids to Add for Safety in Chapter 5) to each 1 cup prepared juice.
Sweeteners
Sugar helps the gel to form, is a preserving aid, and increases flavor in the final product. The sugar called for in the recipes for jellies, jams, and other preserves is, unless otherwise specified, white sugar. Other natural sweeteners—as well as artificial, or non-nutritive ones—are described at length in Chapter 5, “Common Ingredients and How to Use Them.”
In recipes using powdered pectin, light corn syrup may replace ½ the sugar needed in either jellies or jams. Where liquid pectin is used, light corn syrup may replace up to 2 cups of the sugar.
In recipes without added pectin, we suggest substituting no more than ½ the sugar with a mild-flavored honey. In recipes with added pectin, we replace no more than 2 cups of the required sugar with an equal measure of honey. Caution: in small batches (5- or 6-glass yield), no more than 1 cup of the sugar should be replaced by honey.
Pectin/Acid Content