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"
Any
suggestions for making jam from mulberries?
"
Hello
Chaps,
I'm heartbroken due to boiling up some 5 pounds of beautiful
mulberries to make jam, only to have them not set on
me. I subsequently added the juice of a lemon and reboiled,
but after a total of two hours or so of boiling, I've
made mulberry toffee.
My wife believes that my fundamental error was to use
brown (demerara) sugar. I can't find anything in the
literature which explicitly excludes its use, but I've
always made successful jams with white sugar, and had
a similar experience when we ran out of white sugar
and I tried to make raspberry jam with demerara last
year (though that half-worked...).
Can you help? There's nothing worse than wasting that
amount of lovely fruit.
Kind regards,
Richard Davison
Bristol, U.K.
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Dear Richard,
We've tossed your question around a lot, for it's hard
when preserves don't work! We also admire you for working
with mulberries, as there's not a great deal of information
about preserving them. While we hate to disagree with
your wife, we don't think it's the demerara sugar that
caused the problem.
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More likely, your predicament has to do with the proportions
of pectin, sugar, and acid. As you probably know, these
proportions vary depending upon the type of fruit you're
using. Mulberries are among those fruits that are not
high in pectin. You were wise to increase the acidity
by adding lemon juice. Nonetheless, if there wasn't sufficient
pectin, the mulberries couldn't set.
Another factor in setting rests on the maturity of fruit.
When fruit is overripe, pectin changes to pectic acid,
a form of pectin that does not promote jelling. Mulberries
are not usually picked from the tree but allowed to fall
to the ground when they're ripe. By the time they're gathered
from beneath the tree, much of the pectin content has
likely already changed to pectic acid. So the gelling
capacity is further reduced by the fruits' maturity.
Mulberries are ancient fruits of Asian origin, reportedly
cultivated in China 5,000 years ago. They were, of course,
more in demand for their leaves, which were the primary
food source for silkworms. Their fruit is still not well
known, so recipes are not easy to find. The recipes we
have located use added commercial pectin to guarantee
that jams and jellies set.
The unusable product that you ended up with is probably
the result of overcooking. Longer cooking actually breaks
down the pectin molecules. Eventually the evaporation
of water makes jam thick but results in a gummy, sticky
product, often with a darker color caused by the sugar
caramelizing during the extended cooking time. Jam is
best cooked rapidly, in small batches.
Thanks for being inquisitive! We've learned more about
mulberries, and likely your question has also made others
more aware of some new angles on preserving.
Anne & Sue
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