How to Host a Canning Party

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of home preservation. I recently simmered some lemons into marmalade, have turned plums and apricots into jam, and set up jars of whole pears and plums (well, semi-whole with pears, but still). I've spent a lot of solo time with my canner, but really it's so much better when you get together to can with friends. It's like anything else, I suppose.

And, like anything else, there can be something of a learning curve. I recently authored an article on the lovely blog Culinate, giving some handy tips for hosting a canning party. It's something of an update on thoughts I'd been marinating on since last year's canning parties, all refined and distilled into an easy list. You can check it out here. Happy preserving!

Meyer Lemon Thyme Marmalade

For all my love of my current home (Portland, Oregon), I must admit that California just blows my mind sometimes. A few years ago I made the drive from Portland to the Bay Area, and at one point I casually turned to look out the window and the view just knocked me out. Napa, maybe? The picture had changed from the usual grassy verge to these amazing, breathtaking golden-blond hills. It was like the setting for some romantic period movie, secretly hidden in this very country. "Oh my god, why doesn't everyone want to live here?" I managed to gasp. My boyfriend turned to me, patiently. "Everyone does want to live here," he explained. "These are some of the highest property values in the entire country." Ah, California.

Truth be told, it's not just the rolling Tuscan hills, dirt-cheap amazing produce, or general golden glow that endears California to me. It's this: everyone I know in the Bay Area has a meyer lemon tree in their backyard. Everyone. I think they're part of a state-issued program, like the dividend checks from Alaska's permanent fund. If by chance you don't have one of your own, you live next to someone who does. And you have at least an apricot, fig, or persimmon tree instead to console you.

Last month a friend made the drive up from Berkeley, and offered to bring some lemons with her (it's possible I might have insisted). I made it clear that I wasn't looking for a couple token fruits, but a cardboard box full of them. Which I was given. We had a few blissful weeks of fragrant whisky sours, and the zest is still infusing in a jar of soon-to-be meyer limoncello. But time marched on, and I didn't want the remaining lemons to go soft. So I turned to marmalade.

I've tried a few marmalade techniques over the years, and this method is my favorite. I won't lie: it's undeniably fussy, and takes a good bit of time. But the results are lovely. Most methods have you hack up the whole fruit, discarding only the pits. The rinds soften during their long simmer, and the resulting sour/sweet product is delicious. But, inspired by the amazing June Taylor, I adopt a somewhat more involved process. Instead of tossing in pieces of whole citrus, I break them down in a particular way. The zest is shaved off, cut however you like (I tend to use a citrus zester for tiny curls, but some people might favor taking larger strips with a peeler). Then the remaining bitter white pith is trimmed off, and the fruit segments are "supremed," or cut/pulled off of the tough dividing membranes. You simmer the membranes and pits in a cheesecloth bag to extract pectin to set your marmalade, but the spread itself is remarkable smooth and delicious. No bitter white pith, no tough fibrous membranes. Just lovely juicy fruit and sharp candied peel, suspended in clear golden sweetness. Oh, California.


Meyer Lemon Thyme Marmalade

yields ~ 6 half-pints marmalade

6 lbs meyer lemons, washed
2.5 cups water
2 lbs (lbs, not cups!) sugar
~1 Tbsp thyme leaves, rinsed and pulled off the stems (I favor a sprinkling of thyme to play on my Mediterranean dreams of the Golden State, but the marmalade is just as lovely without)

special equipment: cheesecloth, kitchen twine, canning jars and gear

Peel the zest from 2/3 of the lemons, and chop however finely you like (I like to remove tiny ribbons of peel directly from the fruit with a citrus zester, but if you want finished peels that are large enough to see in the finished product, use a regular peeler and then cut the removed peel into bits the size of your choosing). Be careful to remove only the peel, and none of the bitter white pith. Set the chopped zest into your marmalade pot and set aside.

Take the lemons and supreme them. If you haven't done this before, you can find a handy pictorial here, but this is the basic overview: Cut off the top and bottom of the fruit to form level surfaces, and then cut off all remaining pith and peel. Free the fruit from the membranes--with some citrus you'll have to cut the sections out, but with most meyer lemons you can just sort of tug them free with your fingers. Drop the naked, membrane-free fruit sections in your marmalade pot along with the zest. Place all membranes and seeds in a separate bowl. Discard the pith and extra peel. If there's any bits of fruit on the peel/pith you've trimmed, feel free to squeeze its juice into the marmalade pot. Bear in mind that the fruit segments will break down as they boil, so don't worry too much if you can't get them out in one piece.

Add the water to your marmalade pot, and bring to a boil over high heat. While the heat is coming up, lay out a large square of cheesecloth, and place all your membranes and pits therein. Tie it up with the kitchen twine, and add it to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat, and fish out the ball of seeds and membranes and set it on a plate to cool. When it's cool enough to handle, squeeze it to milk out the pectin. As you'll squeeze, a milky goo will ooze out. Exactly what you want! Let this goo plop back into the marmalade pot (don't worry if it sits strangely in blobs--it will melt once you reheat the marmalade). Squeeze the bag for a few minutes, until you've milked out a few tablespoons of pectiny goo. Add the sugar and thyme leaves, and bring the pot back to a boil.

Keep the pot at a good rolling boil until the marmalade sets. The amount of time this takes will vary, depending on the amount of pectin and water in the fruit. Count on at least half an hour, generally. It's done when a candy thermometer measures 220 degrees (the consistency will also have changed somewhat, and become more thick and syrupy). If you, like me, don't have a candy thermometer, you can do the cold plate test: Chill a plate in the freezer, and then drizzle a small amount of hot marmalade on it. Place it back in the freezer for a minute, then check it. Set marmalade doesn't need to be set like a jelly, but should be firm enough that it wrinkles slightly when you push it with your finger, and you can almost mound it, like slightly-thickened egg whites. Done! Pour into sterilized canning jars and process in a water bath for a shelf-stable product (and adored gift), or pour into any jars you like and store in the refrigerator.

Ordered Pear Pie (aka Pear Frangipane Tart)

Few people know this, but I happen to have been Fox Lane High School's Biology Student of the Year for 1991. It's not a fact I bust out all the time -- I don't want friends to feel inadequate about their own lack of two-decades'-old scientific achievement -- but it represents a small yet significant part of me. I also subscribed to Ranger Rick magazine all through my formative years, and recently took an Anatomy & Physiology class for kicks. Which is all to say that beneath this unassuming exterior beats the heart of a science nerd. So when I heard about the practice of Pi Day, wherein scientists and bakers come together for a deliciously pun-tastic day of pastry on March 14th (Get it - 3.14?), I couldn't resist.

Sandwiched between the heavy pumpkin pies of winter and the first berry tarts of spring, March isn't usually prime pie season. In fact, pretty much the only fruit in season near me is canned fruit. Luckily, I've got that in spades.

And, because I can't leave well enough alone, I needed to add my own groan-inducing science-themed "humor" to the occasion. I dug up a quart of lightly-spiced canned pears from last fall, which led to thoughts about mathematical pairs. Namely, ordered pairs. Last fall I played around with a pear frangipane tart, with a splay of poached pears pinwheeling on top of a cushion of marzipan-like almond frangipane custard. While my pears don't have the standardized mappable coordinates of classic ordered pairs, they do feature a precise fractal-like placement and beauty (at least until the frangipane puffs around them -- you can go with a thicker frangipane or fewer pears if you want the ordered placement to stand out, but I tend to err on the side of tenderness and lots of fruit).

Some sticklers will argue that with its crumbly-not-flaky patee sucre short crust and straight-sided pan, this would be more accurately described as a tart than a pie. But as it's been noted, they are close enough cousins. And Pi Day is not about divisions -- it's about bringing us together around a love of math. And pie.


Pear Frangipane Tart (aka Ordered Pair Pie)

adapted from the Pear and Almond Frangipane Tart in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours (is there anything that book can't do?) with further crust-tweaking from Smitten Kitchen

I used a quart of canned pears, probably about 3-4 pears' worth. You can used canned pears, or poach your own using the instructions on this recipe. Four pears is a pretty pear-heavy dessert -- if you'd like it to be a bit more like a traditional dessert, use two pears, and make half again as much frangipane (otherwise you'll have a gap of empty crust).

Crust:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 1 tablespoon (9 tablespoons; 4 1/2 ounces) very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces1 egg

Filling and Finishing:
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup ground almonds
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp flour
1 tsp cornstarch
1 egg + 1 egg white
1 tsp vanilla extract1 1/2 tsp almond extract
~3 canned pears, sliced in whatever fashion you find prettiest

To make the crust:
In a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the butter, and pulse until oatmeal-sized pebbles form. Add the egg, and pulse until it just starts to come together (do not over-mix). Turn the dough into a bowl or lightly-floured work surface, and knead until it finishes coming together and seems uniformly moistened. Shape into a chubby disk, cover in plastic, and chill for ~2 hours.

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator, and allow to soften for ~5-10 minutes, until roll-able. Place between sheets of plastic, parchment or waxed paper, and roll out until it forms a circle large enough for your tart pan. Press into a greased pan, and pierce (aka "dock") with a fork in a few places. If your tart pan is metal, throw it in the freezer for half an hour. If your tart pan is ceramic, and you don't want it to shatter from going from freezer to oven, toss it back in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Remove the chilled crust from the freezer or refrigerator. Butter a tart-sized piece of foil, and press it against the crust (no pie weights required, which is good because you probably don't own any). Bake 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake another 10 minutes, until the crust is beginning to turn light brown. If any air bubbles form, you can release the air with a fork and push them down. Remove from the oven, and set aside to cool while you prepare the filling.

To make frangipane and finish the pie:
Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Combine the butter, sugar, almond meal and salt in a food processor. Pulse to combine. Sprinkle in the flour and cornstarch, pulse, then add the egg and egg white and extracts, and process again until very smooth.

Spread the frangipane gently on the cooled crust, and arrange the pears on top in any fashion you like (ordered or not). Bake until the frangipane puffs and turns golden, and feels firm to the touch, ~45-50 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Canned Pears

The harvest continues! Although the nip of fall is definitely in the air, ripe fruit continues to spill over Portland sidewalks. Last week a friend and I harvested a wheelbarrow full of pears from a neighbor's overflowing tree. After beginning a canning venture at the ill-advised start time of 8pm, we picked through piles of delicious-but-imperfect backyard fruit, cutting out the brown spots and bug bites (and, in one terrifying moment, fighting an earwig that spilled out onto the floor). We peeled, chopped, and simmered, getting sugary syrup over everything in sight. But in the end we filled the countertops with jar after jar of quartered poached pears (and several more jars of pearsauce, made from the fruit that was either too ripe or too ugly). And we finished before midnight. Barely.

The details on canning pears vary a bit, depending upon the details of your pears. Very ripe pears, like fleshy plums, can be raw-packed. The soft fruit is peeled, seeded, cut into quarters if desired, then shoved in a clean jar and topped with a sugar syrup. But if your fruit is firmer, you want to go the hot-pack route. Instead of just covering raw fruit with a hot syrup, you first simmer the fruit segments directly in the syrup for five minutes. The pears are then ladled out into your clean jars, and topped with the syrup. I'm partial to the hot-pack method, probably because I'm too impatient to wait for pears to ripen (and I find the under-ripe fruit somewhat easier to work with). Both methods result in lovely canned pears. Just make sure you don't hot-pack ripe pears, which are too soft to withstand the simmer, and will begin to break apart. A good rule of thumb is that if the pear is soft enough to eat raw, it's too soft to hot-pack.


Canned Pears (a rough template)

As many pears as you can handle
A bowl of water with a splash of lemon juice
As much syrup as you need
As many jars as it takes
Any flavorings you fancy to add excitement to the fruit (I went with slices of ginger and cardamom pods, but you can try vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, thyme sprigs, etc.)
A splash of booze (optional - brandy makes for a traditional pairing)

Sterilize your jars, either in boiling water or a dishwasher. Distribute any desired spices among the jars.

Peel your pears, and cut them in half to remove the seeds (a melon baller works wonderfully, but a knife also does the job) and any remaining stem or blossom bits on the ends. Some pears also have a tough string of membrane running from the seeds to the stem -- remove this if you see it. Leave the pears as halves, or cut into quarters if you desire. Drop the segments into the lemony water to prevent discoloration.

Prepare your syrup: I favor a medium syrup, of 2 parts water to 1 part sugar. Make as much as you'll need to fill your jars. Add a splash of booze to taste, if desired. Bring to a boil.

Fish your pear segments out of the lemony water. If you have firm pears, simmer them in the syrup for five minutes. Remove the segments with a slotted spoon, and place in your jars, shaking them down a bit to fit in as many as possible. Pour syrup in the jars up to the bottom thread. Free any trapped air pockets with a sterilized spoon or knife, and add more syrup if needed. If you have softer pears, skip the simmering and add them directly to the jars. Unlike the pre-simmered pears, they will do a bit more shrinking, so pack them in tightly. Top with the boiling syrup, and remove any air pockets.

Top jars with sterilized lids, screw the rings on finger-tight, and then process in a boiling water bath (20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts). Remove and cool, then check that the lids have sealed. The syrup will infuse the pears (and vice versa) as they sit. By winter, they'll be amazing.

Canned Plums In Syrup

I just can't stop looking at these canned plums. Or, apparently, telling people that they're pickled eggs (a joke whose humor seems lost on most of my audience). I'm no stranger to canning, as I've already mentioned. But I've never put whole fruits inside of jars before, an act that seems like it shouldn't work. You wouldn't throw whole plums in the freezer -- how can you cavalierly toss them inside a jar?

As it turns out, it's simply necessity that leads to this dramatic presentation. Most plums are clingstone, with the flesh firmly attached to the pit. There's no way you're going to end up with neat pitted halves, as you would with freestone peaches. The only option is to can them whole, and just eat around the pits. But even with this unromantic explanation, I still sit in wonder at the sight of whole fruit, bobbing in its enclosed syrupy habitat.

Canned plums are so simple that they barely warrant a recipe. So instead, here are a series of loose guidelines. Find a tree in your neighborhood before the season is over.


Canned Plums In Syrup

As many plums as you can handle
As much syrup as you need
As many jars as it takes
Optional: any flavorings you fancy to add excitement to the fruit (vanilla beans, rosemary sprigs, etc.)

Sterilize your jars, either in boiling water or a dishwasher. Wash the plums, and prick them a few times with a skewer. This allows the syrup to permeate, and prevents the skins from bursting (although if you have a particularly thin-skinned variety of plums, they might burst anyways, leading to a still-delicious-albeit-somewhat-less-pretty product). Place the plums in your canning jars, tamping them down to fit as many as possible. They'll shrink in the hot syrup, so really pack them in. Tuck any desired flavorings in amongst the fruit.

Prepare your syrup: I favor a medium syrup, of 2 parts water to 1 part sugar. Make as much as you'll need to fill your jars. Bring to a boil, and then pour over the plums, up to 1/2" of the rim.

Top jars with sterilized lids, screw the rings on finger-tight, and then process in a boiling water bath (20 minutes for pints, 25 minutes for quarts). Remove and cool, then check that the lids have sealed. The syrup will infuse the plums (and vice versa) as they sit. By winter, they'll be amazing.

Apricot Jam (and a bulk jamming primer)

Canning en masse feels so old-fashioned. Because it is, I suppose. Like the quilting bee or the barn raising, it's members of a community coming together to do something we couldn't do individually. The harvest comes on its own schedule, and we need to gather the fruit or else it falls to the slugs. Admittedly, my bulk canning results from a good deal on bulk fruit purchasing just as often as from harvesting laden trees, but the sentiment is close enough. And in the case of apricots, the gather-ye-rosebuds metaphor is pretty apt. Even though apricots are a cultivated rather than backyard fruit tree (at least in the Pacific Northwest), the season is painfully short. If you want apricot jam for the winter months, you've got to find some time in that brief window, gather your friends together, and stock up for the year. I'll admit that a stocked pantry isn't as impressive as a quilt or a barn. But again, the sentiment is the same: we can do some amazing things when we come together.

Recently I joined friends (and friends of friends) in canning 80 pounds of apricots. There's something so satisfying about canning that sheer volume of fruit. Especially apricots, so fragrant and golden. But it takes some effort. Having been the veteran of several all day jam sessions (hee!), I'm going to share some hard-learned tips on making these run as smoothly as possible:

1. Make sure you've got all the gear you need. Drag out your biggest pots, and have friends bring more if you don't have enough, especially those with nice heavy bottoms (burning jam is just so disappointing). Buy a 25 lb sack of sugar, bags of lemons, and pre-order your pectin in bulk. We found that it was easiest to have the host pick all this up (well, easiest for those of us who weren't the host). Everyone gave our host a count of their desired jam yield in advance, brought their own jars, and then paid a per-cup price for their share of the fruit, pectin, sugar and lemons.

2. Have jammers come in shifts. There are only so many burners on a stove, so many cutting boards, so much table space. And so many hours that someone wants to work. Staggering your jammers can help things move more smoothly.

3. Get things on the stove right away, with more on deck. Heating massive quantities of jam can take massive amounts of time, so start the pots going as soon as you can. We had our one main pot of jam going, and then had an "on-deck" pot on a lower heat behind it, slowly warming the fruit without any worry of scorching (or need for constant stirring). We also had bowls of sugar and pectin pre-mixed, at the ready as soon as our fruit came to a boil.

4. Write things down so that the math doesn't bite you in the butt. How much fruit was poured in that pot? Does that bowl of sugar have pectin sifted in already? Has lemon juice already been added to that apricot puree? Getting the answer wrong can suck. Especially if you have a lot of hands in the kitchen, labeling will be invaluable. You can lay a slip of paper on top of your bowls of dry ingredients, or write directly on the sides of pots and stainless steel bowls with a grease pencil. (I find writing on cookware somewhat thrilling, in a hope-mom-doesn't-catch me way.)

Apricot Jam

yields about 15 cups of jam

Although I'm loathe to write a product-specific recipe, all pectins behave differently, and have different sugar/acid requirements. I use Pomona, which gels based on a particular proportion of pectin and calcium water. Apricot kernels, the small amond-shaped seed hidden inside the pits, add a subtle bitter almond flavor to the jam (as well as a small amount of cyanide, but they tell me it's not enough to worry). It's best if the jam sits a few months for the kernel flavor to permeate, but it's fine to eat whenever.

12 cups chopped or pureed apricots (about 6 lbs raw fruit)

3/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup calcium water (see Pomona Pectin package for instruction)

6 cups sugar

3 Tbsp Pomona Pectin

- Sterilize enough jars to hold 15 cups of jam, either in a boiling water bath or your dishwasher.

- Combine the apricots, lemon juice, and calcium water in a heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil, stirring to ensure it doesn't scorch.

- In the meanwhile, remove the kernels from the apricot stones. Gently smash the pits with a hammer (not too hard, or you'll smush the kernels). Remove the stones, and save a few dozen of the nicest ones. Drop a couple into each sterilized jar.

- Sift together the sugar and pectin (sift well -- unsifted pectin will clump in the jam). When the apricot mixture comes to a boil, stir in the sugar/pectin mixture, and return to a boil for a few minutes. Pour the jam into sterilized jars, wipe the rims clean, top with boiled lids and finger-tightened rings, and process in a boiling-water bath for 5 minutes (for pints and half-pints). Remove and let cool, and listen for that magic ping to let you know that the lid has sealed. Of course, you can test the lids later (the dimple in the center of the lid will be sucked into concavity by any jar that's properly sealed), but that satisfying sound is not to be missed. The jars will continue to set as they cool.

(many thanks to Alex for these photos -- I was a bit too sticky to be handling a camera that day)

Rosemary Plum Jam

Home-canned foods, like home-sewn clothes, are not always the cost-saving wonders that their Depression-era backgrounds evoke. As has recently been pointed out, canning can get expensive. But it doesn't have to be. As a canning obsessive, I would like to share my tips for doing it on the cheap:

1. Stock up on Jars

Buying new canning jars can cost about $.75 a jar. Start trolling thrift stores and Craig's List, where they're generally half that. Yard sales are also huge sources, as people clean the dusty jars out of grandma's house, or make the wise decision not to take several pounds of glassware with them when they move. If you need to buy new, call around to a few places -- prices can vary hugely.

2. Find Free Fruit!

This is the biggest cost saver around. Here in the temperate rainforest of Portland, this can be pretty easy, and new websites are springing up every day to spread the word about urban gleaning. But it can be surprisingly easy to find fruit on your own -- in the past few weeks, I've harvested sour cherries and cherry plums (more on that below), just by knocking on doors and asking. Some folks are just happy for you to keep the fruit from rotting on their sidewalks. Just make sure to drop off a jar of jam afterwards.

3. If You Must Buy Fruit, Buy in Bulk

Getting friends together for a canning party can be a surprising amount of fun (depending on your definition of fun), as well as helping you net good deals. If you're willing to buy a lot of fruit, 10 lbs, or a full box, farmer's markets will often cut you a deal. Hitting the market at the end of the day can also be good, although it's something of a crapshoot -- farmers might be sold out, or they might be willing to give a ridiculously good deal on leftover stock (especially perishable fruit like berries).

4. Value Your Product!

Okay, this isn't entirely about thrift, but I feel compelled to share this hard-learned lesson. When you first finish canning, and your pantry shelves are groaning, you may have a false feeling of flushness. You want to share your jewel-like wares, and you seem to have a lot of them. Beware! Jam can go oh-so-quickly, and then it's the dead of winter, and you have nothing sweet to fall back on. I'm all for sharing the sugary love, but don't go nutburgers with it. I brought jams as gifts to parties where I barely knew the host, even as a tip for my hairdresser, for goodness sake. I think it was only our second cut.


Rosemary Plum Jam
makes about 8 half-pints

Cherry plums are widely grown as ornamentals, with reddish-purple leaves and fruit. Many people don't even know that the fruits are edible, and are happy to let you collect.

6 cups pitted and roughly chopped cherry plums
3 cups sugar
pectin
1 large sprig rosemary

- Simmer fruit with rosemary, add sugar and pectin according to directions (I'm especially fond of Pomona Pectin, which doesn't require a particular sugar ratio in order to set). Because our household is somewhat fussy about texture, I'll fish out a few of the scrolled-up plum skins as it simmers. Taste periodically, and remove the rosemary sprigs as soon as the flavor has permeated to your taste. You're aiming for a light herbal flavor, almost just a scent.

- Pour into sterilized jars, seal and process in a water bath. Although it's tempting to artfully place a rosemary sprig in each jar, don't do it! Unless you fancy jam that tastes like pine needles.