Holiday Canning and Label Design

Plum’s the word! Overnight, the sugar plum fairy landed at SSJ and left several recipes: Balsamic Pickled Plums, Boozy Plum and Toasted Pecan Conserve, Ginger Plum Jam [with Candied Ginger Bits], and Winter Spiced Plum & Cherry Preserves. Beginning today and over the course of the week, we’re making enough jars to give to family and friends over the holidays. These recipes went live this morning on SSJ, but they are also reprinted below SSJ’s new “On this Day” feature. [Just a note, if you’re making more than one of these recipes, make the pickled plums last, as raw-pack canning projects can sometimes siphon their syrups and brines into the canning bath upon processing.]

As for label design, we thought we’d make a splash by taking images from Creepy Victorian Christmas Cards, formatting them in photoshop and printing them on our avery canning jar labels. Of course, we can’t just stop at labels. Since this is a “plum” year, we’re going to source some gorgeous plum and maroon ribbons to festoon our gifts. I love a giant bow, don’t you?

Here’s a sample of the canning labels we’ve made:

Full results to follow here and on Instagram.

ON THIS DAY

2022: Read and Illustrate a Christmas Story
2021: Red & Green Line Drawings
2020: Holiday Film Noir with Black and White Cookies
2019: Make Fried Chicken
2018: Sketch the Tree and Sponsor a Live One
2017: Blind Chocolate Tasting
2016: King Lear Cold Reading
2015: Make Saffron Lussekatter : Santa Lucia Buns
2014: Throw-Back Thursday: Make Picasso Santa Holiday Cards and Bake Turkish Pizza Pides
2013: Improvise Christmas Scenes with some of your Favourite Fictional Characters
2012: Make a Christmas Collage Post-Card, Write a Memory Poem on the Back, & Send it to a Friend
2011: “Christmassify” Your Jars, or Glam Cans Lab 2

The Recipes:

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Balsamic Pickled Plums

A wonderful fall or winter canning project. These balsamic pickled plums taste great on their own or served with chicken and pork, hearty vegetable dishes, frittatas, pulses or pilafs.

Servings: 8 half-pints

Ingredients

2 cups balsamic vinegar I used red balsamic for the plummy colour, but white works just as well.
1 cup sweet vermouth I used red vermouth, but white will work in a pinch.
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
6 cinnamon sticks
14 cloves
8 whole allspice berries
10 cardamom pods
3 pounds plums I used Angelenos, italian prune plums.

Instructions

Prepare for canning

Clean and sterilize eight half-pint mason jars (or the equivalent) and keep them warm.
Fill a large water bath canner with clean water and begin to bring the water to a boil.
Place 8 mason jar lids in a small pot with hot water and set on low/simmer to keep warm.

Make the Syrup

In a medium saucepan, combine the vinegar, vermouth, sugar, water, and whole spices.
Bring the syrup to a boil.
Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, for six minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat and allow to stand for 30-60 minutes, giving the spices time to infuse the syrup.

Prepare the Plums and Pack the Jars

Wash the plums, remove any stems, slice in half, and pit.
Slice each half-plum into thirds or quarters.
Pack each warm, sterilized, half-pint jar with the plum slices (about 3 plums per jar).

Add the Syrup and Process

Bring the syrup back to a boil.
Pour the syrup through a sieve set over a funnel into each jar of plums, leaving ½-inch headspace per jar.
Wipe jar rims clean, add a warm lid to each jar, and close with a ring, making sure each ring is not too tight by unscrewing a half-to-full turn after securing.
Process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. The lid should be on the canning pot and the water should have returned to a rolling boil before the timer starts.
Remove the jars from the canner and allow to cool completely on wire racks.
You may wish to rinse the jars to remove any residual stickiness before decorating with labels and ribbons.

Notes

A Note on Canning Raw-Pack Items:

Raw-pack items, especially pickles, occasionally experience something called “Siphoning.” This is when the fruit and water bubble up and sweat or expand so much that the pickling brine inside the jars leaks out into the canning bath. This does not mean your cans are ruined. Allow the jars to cool and see which lids are sealed. If the lid is sealed and there’s not an extreme loss of liquid inside the jar (More than about an inch), the pickles should be fine. Though, when in doubt, throw it out!

Here’s some information from the Penn State Expansion:

“If your jars siphon, check the jars for a solid seal. Clean jars thoroughly being careful to remove all food that may be trapped in the threads at the top of the jar. If food is left on the jar it will mold. Check these jars occasionally in storage to make sure they stay sealed. Mark the jars to use first. Sometimes a jar can come unsealed months after it was canned.

If liquid is lost during processing, it does not cause the food to spoil, but the food above the liquid may darken and dry. According to the National Center for Home Food Preservation, if the loss is excessive, for example, half of the liquid, refrigerate the jar(s) and use within two to three days.”

If you are canning pickles and other raw pack jars in addition to other jams and jellies, you’ll probably want to do the jams and jellies first, as siphoned brines and syrups discolour the water in the canning bath and make everything canned therein sticky. Best practice after jars siphon into the canning bath would be to discard the water and to start fresh for your next set of cans. It can take some time to refill and reboil a canning bath, so process jars “most likely to siphon” last.

This recipe is my own gentle revision of a tried and true “Balsamic Pickled Apricot” recipe from a Better Homes and Gardens special “Canning” magazine from 2011.

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