Richard

Here's a procedure that is part of many recipies, so feeling a bit modular I decided to treat it in a separate thread.

What we're making is a fruit preserve. When finished you can either "jar it" for later use, or use it immediately in pies, cakes, breads, or whatever it is you will cook. No sugar is added to this recipe because with fresh fruit, its just not needed and in my opinion ruins the taste.

The materials you need:

• A large stock pot, 24 cup version shown here
• A large 4 cup (1 liter) measuring cup
• One very large spoon, so the steam doesn't burn you while stirring
• A flat spatula in the rare event some fruit sticks to the bottom of the pot
• Cooking Thermometer
• Long handled tongs for holding thermometer in boiling hot pot of fruit
• 1 Tablespoon measuring spoon
• A small grinder, like coffee bean grinder shown on right
• Lemon juice, either fresh or from concentrate. This is your preservative, don't omit it.
• 1 or more boxes of Tapioca (instant is fine) or Arrowroot. This is your thickener, which you can omit if the "hint of vanilla" taste bothers you.
• Plenty of fruit!

Basic procedure:

1. For each 4 cups of fruit you'll make (guess), put 1 heaping Tablespoon of Tapioca or Arrowroot into the grinder. Run the grinder for 3 to 5 minutes, shaking occasionally until you have a powder.
2. For each 4 cups of fruit, make sure you will have at least 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice. If using Meyer lemon, you'll need 1.5 TBSP instead throughout this recipe.
3. Put a tablespoon of lemon juice in the bottom of the stock pot.
4. Rinse off fruit and fill up the 4 cup measuring cup, pitting fruit as necessary. Berry-sized fruits can go right in, Apricot size fruit can go in as halves, peaches should be cut off the stone into 6 to 8 slices.
5. Put the 4 cups in the pot, and sprinkle 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice over the top of this fruit.
6. Repeatedly fill the measuring cup, place in pot, and top with lemon juice until you've used up the fruit or the pot is full 2 inches from the top -- no higher!
7. Put the lid on the pot
8. At this point you can put the pot in the refrigerator over night or for about 1 day.
9. Heat the pot slowly on a stove. Medium-Low is an excellent choice.
10. Stir the pot once every five minutes and measure the temperature after stirring.
11. Once the temperature reaches 130 to 140 F:
    • Remove the lid.
    • Add 1 TBSP ground Tapioca or Arrowroot for each 4 cups of fruit in the pot
    • Increase the temperature to Medium-High
    • STIR CONSTANTLY until the temperature stays 9 deg-F (5 deg-C) above boiling point for 5 minutes or the fruit becomes translucent. Do not let fruit stick to bottom or sides of pot.
12. Take the pot off the stove and put the top on
13. When the boiling has stopped enough, pour into jars (if "jarring" preserve) or into pie, bread dough, or whatever it will be used for.

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