How to make plum jam

One old way of preserving fruit is by making jam. This type of jam, however, gets characteristically less sugar added to it. While you are adding less sugar, by cooking it you will gain a mass with less water, and thus with higher concentration of sugar already found in fruit.
It is quite simple to make, although depending on the fruit it could take a while and require lots of stirring. Different recipes will vary somewhat depending on fruit so you might want to find a specific recipe. Here we will use plums as an example. You can vary the amounts to your taste or need. Some people, due to health problems or diet restrictions, don’t put any sugar into jam, instead they depend on fruit alone for taste or add sweeteners.

To make plum jam you will need:
- Ten pounds of plums. It is very important that the plums, or any other fruit you use is ripe. If it is not then your jam won’t be as sweet without adding a lot more sugar to it, it might not have the right texture either.
- Two pounds of sugar. As this varies greatly by taste you should start with one pound and then go from there. So have a few more pounds ready on hand just in case. 
- A large and wide pot. Wider and lower pots are desirable due to the ease of stirring over the deep pots.
- A clean or new wooden spoon for stirring.
- A small ladle. The ladle doesn't need to be tiny just comfortable enough a size for you to be able to pour into the jars quickly and without much worry of spilling over.
- Clean jars. For the above amounts a safe number of jars is about ten average sized jars. The amount you will need will vary largely on how thick or runny you make your jam.
- Several clean kitchen towels.
- A stove with an oven.

How to make the plum jam: 
- First you will need to prepare the fruit by washing it thoroughly and pitting it.
- After the fruit has been cleaned put it into the large pot you chose and basically cook it until it starts to fall apart and get mushy. Make sure you stir the jam constantly or it will burn.
- Add a pound of sugar, stirring it in well. 
- After a few more minutes of cooking carefully take out a spoonful of jam. Let it cool on the side so you can taste it to see if more sugar is needed.
- Keep cooking and stirring the Jam until the bottom of the pot becomes visible.
- Towards the end take out your jars, put them on low temperature into the oven. They need to be hot when you put jam into them.
- Once the jam is done use a ladle to carefully pour the jam into the hot jars.
- Make sure there are no big air bubbles in the jam (get rid of them with a thin straw).
- Put the jars, uncovered, back into the oven, turn it off and let the jam sit at least 24 hours in a closed, turned off oven. Leaving it in the oven will create a thin crust that will help prevent it from spoiling.
- Once cooled completely cover the jars and store them in a cool dry place until giving away.

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