Not very well, as it turns out.
I’ve been on a regular jam-making roll here, having made strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, strawberry-rhubarb, peach and cherry in the past week or so. Despite my cries of woe, the strawberry did in fact set up, so I have a wide array of lovely jams.
The cherry, though. Last year’s attempt at cherry jam was Too Soft, IMHO, and this year in a misguided attempt to make it set up better I essentially doubled the pectin.
It worked. Somewhat too well. :) So this morning I’ve reboiled it with some more cherries and a bit more sugar and rejarred it in hopes that it will set up in a more pleasing fashion. Right now it’s…very soft. Veeeery. Soft. But it tastes spectaularly good, and I’m going to just go ahead and wait it out and see if it sets up at all. This is a relatively easy decision, as I’m out of pectin anyway. :)
The fruits of my labor, so to speak: strawberry-rhubarb, peach, strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, cherry.
I’ve read that plum jam/jelly is particularly hard to get to set properly, and my experience last year certainly bears that out; I ended up with a lot of plum sauce. I tried reboiling it with extra pectin, but that only made it sweeter (too sugary!) and didn’t make it any firmer.
Any ideas/suggestions?
If it tastes good but is too soft, you can always use it for pancakes. :)