Category Archives: Jams & Preserves

Plum Rugelach

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These little pastry creations are Rugelach. Have you ever heard of them? They are new to me, but I have fallen for them. Big time.

Rugelach are a traditional Jewish pastry – a little crescent made from cream cheese or sour cream pastry wrapped around a sweet filling. I discovered them in New York (next to the fug bahs), and have been desperate to recreate them at home.

The rugelach I bought looked more like pinwheels; they had just been rolled into a log and sliced, but all reputable recipes I’ve found have them cut into wedges, then rolled up from the wide end in – like croissants. This makes them messier and stickier but (or maybe therefore) infinitely more adorable.

Discovering the cream cheese pastry when you take the first bite is amazing. I don’t think I’ve come across proper cream cheese pastry in bakeries here, and I’ve gotta say, we are missing out, people! Especially in these rugelach with sweet, jammy fillings – it is like a toasted bagel with cream cheese and jam, but in pastry form.

I have many ideas for things to fill rugelach with (including raspberry & currant, apricot & walnut, dark chocolate, almond cream…). This time I used some of my plum & blackcurrant jam, along with a few raisins.

Plum & Blackcurrant Rugelach
Adapted from several recipes at and via kosherfood.about.com
Makes many many many.

Cream Cheese Pastry
200g butter
250g cream cheese (not spreadable or lite)
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups plain flour

Fruit Filling
Plum & Blackcurrant Jam (or any berry flavour, really)
½ cup raisins or currants

To glaze
1 egg
2-3 Tbsp sugar

To make the pastry, cream the butter and cream cheese together. Add the sugar vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the sifted flour and mix lightly. Wrap the dough in cling film and chill for at least an hour (I made mine the day before).

When you’re ready to make the rugelach, preheat the oven to 180°, and line a couple of baking trays with baking paper.

Divide your dough into four. Lightly flour a surface to roll on – keeping in mind that you need to cut the dough on it, so get a board if you’re not ok with cutting directly on your bench!. Roll your first portion out into a circle, about 3mm thick. Give the jam a good stir to loosen it up, and spread it over the circle, starting from the centre and moving outwards, and leaving about 2cm clear at the outside. Don’t spread too thickly or the pastry will be too messy to bake, and that would be tragic. Sprinkle the raisins on top of the jam.

This is where it gets sticky. Get a sharp knife and cut the circle into wedges like a pizza; I think I cut mine into 10-12 wedges. Starting from the outside (wide) edge, roll each wedge up. Ideally you end up with the point on the underside of the crescent, so you can place it seam-side down on a prepared tray. Repeat with the other three portions of dough.

Brush each pastry with a little beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar, and bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden.

Marmalade Steamed Pudding

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I started getting really into steamed puddings a while ago. They seem a bit of a fiddle first time round, but actually they’re not hard, and they result in a yummy moist cakey dessert that you eat warm with sauce. Mmmmmmmmm. And I even like the anxious moment when the bowl is inverted… will it turn out? won’t it? will it? It did! Yusssssssssssssss.

I made this lime marmalade a few weeks ago and have been looking for new things to do with it. Steamed puddings made with jam or marmalade are nothing new, but I hadn’t made one before. You plonk all the marmalade in the bottom of the pudding steamer, and carefully add the pudding batter on top, so as the pudding steams the marmalade turns to a delicious syrup, and then when you turn it out the syrupy marmalade goodness soaks back into the pudding like a sauce. Genius.

This is a very basic steamed pudding recipe. Like most good basic recipes, it will serve you well and is reliable, but can also be adapted to suit your own tastes. I’d like to try making it with buttermilk sometime, and also to see if reduced-fat spread could replace at least some of the butter (although the recipe is actually relatively light already). Any flavour marmalade would work with this; why not try a grapefruit and orange pudding?

 

Marmalade Steamed Pudding
Serves 4

50g butter
¼ cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup self-raising flour
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
½ cup trim milk
½ cup marmalade (see here for my lime marmalade recipe)
yoghurt, cream or ice cream, to serve (I vote Greek yoghurt for this one)

Cream the butter and sugar, until pale and fluffy. Add the egg and lemon rind, and beat again. Stir in the sifted flour and milk. Grease a pudding basin (non-stick spray is your friend here), and spoon the marmalade into the bottom of the basin. Carefully spoon the pudding batter on top and cover the basin. My steamer has a clip on lid, but you could cover a basin with two layers of tin foil tied on tightly. In case you’re new to steaming, this is how I do it – I have a big stockpot that I set on the stove, and put an upturned ceramic heatproof saucer or dish in the bottom, which the pudding basin can sit on top of. Then I half-¾ fill it up with hot water and bring it to the boil while I’m mixing the pudding. Carefully place the pudding basin into the stockpot, on top of the saucer. This pudding is actually quite light so I had to put a plate on top of the pudding basin to weigh it down and stop it rolling around in the stockpot! Bring the water back to the boil, and steam the pudding for an hour.

Take the bowl out of the steamer and remove the lid. Place a plate across the bottom of the bowl and carefully invert the whole arrangement so the pudding turns out nicely. Serve hot or warm with yoghurt, cream or ice cream.

Lady Lime Marmalade

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I am a big fan of jam. I have to say the best jam I have ever tasted is my mum’s homemade raspberry jam. I don’t know that she even tests setting point, she seems to just know when it’s ready.  Mine never turns out as nice as hers, even if I use the same recipe and try to follow her instructions.  Sometimes your mum’s cooking is a bit like that, right?

But I can do marmalade, if I do say so myself. I’ve had this recipe for years, I have a sneaky feeling it was a Ray McVinnie one originally. It’s another good base recipe that you can really turn into whatever you want. You can use any mixture of citrus fruit you like. I usually make it with oranges, lemons and grapefruit – so yummy. And when it has orange, you can’t help but add a dash of whiskey. Also, check out Plum Kitchen’s and Pease Pudding’s recent marmalade recipe posts.

This week I wanted to try a fish casserole dish that had lime marmalade in it. And I hate buying shop jams, so I decided I would just have to make the marmalade myself. I hadn’t made marmalade entirely out of limes before, so it has been interesting. The recipe proved its reliability once again, and the marmalade is great on toast, but I think I just prefer a lemon and lime mix! What are your favourite marmalade flavours?

Trusty Marmalade
about 250g citrus fruit (lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit, whatever combination you like!)
300ml water
300g sugar

Chop or slice the fruit according to your preference. I like lots of slivers of peel in my marmalade, but if you’re not so much about the chewy, chunky stuff, invest more time with the knife and chopping board at the start. Put the chopped fruit in a saucepan and cover it with cold water (not the 300ml listed above, just extra water). Bring to the boil and simmer for 4 minutes. Drain well, and return the fruit to the pan. Add the 300ml water and sugar. Bring this to the boil – cook it slowly at the start and stir well to make sure the sugar dissolves. Boil gently for about 20 minutes, or until the slices of fruit are transparent, and the jam is at setting point (drop a small spoonful onto a saucer you’ve had in the freezer; when you push your finger through it gently and the mixture stays separated and wrinkles a little bit, that’s about ready). Remove from the heat and pour into sterilised jars.

This is good just on toast, or as mentioned above, you can use it in a fish casserole, of all things. To be honest, that dish was pretty forgettable, so the lime marmalade has been put out to pasture, spending the rest of its days happily smeared on my toast. It’s nice as a sponge filling too, or so cute as a gift. Before I entered the world of blogging, I made jars of marmalade and passionfruit curd as mother’s day presents and covered the jar lids with purple gingham fabric, and added lavender and lemon coloured soaps tied up with a purple ribbon. So wishing I had taken a photo now. Sigh. Nevermind! The lime marmalade will help ease the pain.

Plum and Blackcurrant Jam

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I’ve been away for a few days … but now back in the land of the blogging and ready with a backlog yummy things to post over the next few days!

Last week I came across some super cheap plums at my local market and bought up large. You might say I had plums for jam.

This is a recipe from Alexa Johnston’s Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Baking (by the way, if you love baking, you NEED this book. Check out Alexa’s website and/or buy the books here). It was originally an Aunt Daisy recipe. I’ve adjusted quantities slightly – this recipe fills 3-4 standard supermarket jam jars.

I was extra keen on this as we had a blackcurrant bush at home when I was little, but I hadn’t eaten these delicious little berries for years! Now they’re firmly back on my favourite fruit list.

Plum & Blackcurrant Jam

750g plums (black doris would be lovely, but I used the lighter-fleshed plums and they are still delicious)
1 1/2 cups water
200g blackcurrants (fresh or frozen)
1kg caster sugar

Before you start, get your jars and lids ready. Wash the jars in hot soapy water, rinse in hot water and put them in the oven at 150(c) on a tray. Leave them in there while you make the jam. Bring a small saucepan of water to boil on the stove, and put your lids in there. Leave them in the boiling water for a few minutes - then you can turn the heat off but it’s easiest to let the lids sit in the pot while the jam’s being made. If you don’t need your jam to keep for very long in the pantry (i.e. if you expect to eat it within a month or so), don’t worry about boiling the lids, just get them clean and dry.

Also, put 3 or 4 saucers in the freezer. I’ll explain later.

So for the jam, chop the plums up and get rid of the stones. I leave my plums quite chunky but if you want a smoother jam, chop them more finely. Put the plums in a large pot with the water, and bring to the boil.

Simmer until the fruit is softening, then drop in the blackcurrants – if you’re using frozen ones, let the mix cook for a couple of minutes to thaw them. Then add the sugar and stir over a gentle heat until it has dissolved. Increase the heat and bring the jam to a fast boil. Watch it carefully to make sure it doesn’t boil over, and stir it regularly to stop it catching on the bottom of the pot.

Now, to test when the jam has cooked enough to set. This takes a bit of getting used to. I have a tendency to overcook jams ever so slightly — you just get the feel of it after a few goes (or is it go’s? or gos? Help! The linguistic degree in me is screaming in agony! ‘Go’ is not really a noun! How can it be pluralised????!!!).

So. Get one of the chilled saucers from the freezer, and drop a small teaspoonful of jam onto it. Let it cool for 10-15 seconds, and push your finger through it gently. If it’s ready, the surface should winkle slightly in front of your finger, and the jam should stay clearly separated where you’ve divided it. If it’s not ready, it will kind of look like half set raspberry jelly.

Keep testing it every couple of minutes, and keep in mind that the jam will still be cooking while you run your saucer test, so it can burn quickly. If you do happen to take it off the heat too early and put it in jars and finish up, and then you find the jam doesn’t set — you can actually put it all back in the pot, and boil it again until it’s ready, and then re-jar it. If you can be bothered. If not, who’s for plum and blackcurrant dessert topping?

Once your jam is ready, take the pan off the heat immediately. Carefully take the hot jars out of the oven and put them on a board. Getting the hot jam out of a hot pot into hot jars and sealing them with hot lids is a bit annoying, but you work out your own methods eventually. I pour my jam into a glass jar with a decent spout and pour it into the jars, then put the lids on using a tea towel to stop getting burnt. As the jam cools, the little button will suck down (like when you bought the jam from the supermarket). Now you can put it in the larder!

One further tip. This is very important. Once you’ve made your jam and gone to all that effort, don’t leave the jars sitting precariously on the edge of the bench while you fly around the kitchen unloading the dishwasher.