As you may recall, for our second wedding anniversary, I gave The Renaissance Man a “fermentation kit.” The Renaissance Man loves to play with food in the kitchen, and so I decided to encourage his creativity! It didn’t take long for the canning supplies to get some use…we ventured out that afternoon and found some perfectly ripe Brooks Plums.

I did some quick reading from one of our new books, Preserving by the Pint, and then we were off and running! The Renaissance Man washed all of the prunes while I sterilized the jars. For the record, no pectin was used as part of this recipe they just happen to be in the picture because they were part of the fermentation kit.

Chop, chop, chop!

As soon as The Renissance Man started to cut up the plums I quickly realized that we had bought a TON of plums! We were in for a long night of canning.

I don’t want to give away too many secrets from the recipe…i.e. go by the book! And believe me, the book is totally worth buying…this plum jam is absolutely amazing with the addition of star anise! If you enjoy the flavor of anise, this is the jam for you. After combining plums, sugar, and star anise you should plan to pull up a chair and stir…stir…and stir a little more…

After 20 minutes at a light boil our liquid mixture started to firm up. It also went from a rich yellow color to deep purple. The smell in our house was intoxicating…it took a great deal of self discipline to put this mixture into jars and can it. All I wanted to do was smear the fresh jam on some toast!

We filled pint jars per the instructions of the recipe and then lowered the jars into the water bath. The nice part about this book and is that it’s meant for small batches. Think two pint jars per batch instead of twenty jars at a time. I like the idea of small batch canning because then you get to try more recipes!

I’m happy to report at each one of our jars sealed through the canning process…I was cheering at each “pop” I heard! We ended up with ten beautiful jars of Plum Jam with Star Anise!

We both agreed that next year we are going to can anything and everything! I’m excited to make unique food and share it with family and fiends. Nothing says love like a handmade gift! To date we’ve used the jam in breakfast yogurt bowls, thumbprint cookies, and on ice cream…the possibilities are endless. Happy canning!