loquat jam

a peek inside the jar (below)

After harvesting some ripe fruit from our loquat tree ( please see my previous post on this ) I decided to try the recipe my friend emailed me and made some jam. Since this was an experiment, I thought it was better to just make half of the recipe, just in case it wasn't successful. I used Sure-jell brand low sugar pectin and followed the exact procedure including leaving the fruit unpeeled and just chopping them up. I ended up regretting this later because it was so much better without the peel. I guess it was indeed a good idea to make just half of the recipe. For the second batch, I tried peeling the fruit before chopping and got much better results. Peeling loquat was an easy task, the peel came right off, like a ripe peach. Soaking the chopped fruit in some lemon juice was important because, like apples, they tend to discolor quickly. However, boiling the fruit in the pectin and sugar syrup, revived and retained it’s bright yellow color. The ripe fruits I gathered were absolutely ripe, not even a tinge of tartness. The result was very good but extra sweet. Perfect with some whole wheat pancakes for breakfast.

a breakfast treat