Apricots, queen of jams - plus a one-bowl Apricot Almond Cake
The quickest jam recipe + tutorial, and a beautiful, quick cake (apricot season comes and goes in a flash!)
It was clear from the poll last week and the 96% of you who wanted to learn how to make apricot preserves that a tutorial would be in the works for today, but I thought I’d include an apricot cake as well since the season is upon us and I am inundated here with apricots and I love creating a new cake recipe.
But first—I have to stop painting myself into an Instagram corner by announcing what I’m working on because every now and then I just don’t love the direction a recipe is going in and need to fiddle a little longer with it. Such was the case with thumbprint cookies using the apricot jam (sometimes it’s the most basic recipes that get my goat). I love the idea of saving some of this bright, summery apricot jam for holiday cookies.
Per usual, I intended for this to be a shorter post, but I love the subject of preserving and included books, tools, and lots of links. You can go straight to the recipe! It’s fun and easy, and if you are new to preserving, it’s a great place to start since apricots have enough natural pectin and acidity to make a quick jam of just fruit, sugar, and lemon juice. Even if you don’t get the perfect set on your jam, it’s utterly delicious and you’ll love it.
If you, like me, love a deep dive into a subject, here’s a link to the United States Department of Agriculture Complete Guide to Home Canning. Warning: it’s full of all the technical information you could want, but sources like this skew very high sugar content. For recipes, I have some recommendations below.
I’ve seen a lot of olive oil cakes lately, and the flavors of apricot, olive oil, and almond sound absolutely delicious so that’s the direction the cake took. It’s a simple, one layer cake that I topped with sliced almonds, and the batter is almost entirely almond flour with a little almond extract as well. It’s a quick, one-bowl make, and is perfect for any stone fruit—I’ll be making it with higher acid fruit, too, like nectarines and peaches and some nice tart plums. Apricots are so great in cakes though, because they have a lower moisture content and don’t shrink nearly as much as other fruit-topped cakes.
Here’s a few tools for making preserves (you really don’t need special equipment, as long as you have a scale, a ladle and a pot):
Books: Saving the Season: a Cooks Guide to Home Canning by Kevin West is a fantastic resource, and I love his recipes. He’s hugely knowledgeable on the subject, and when I contemplated starting a preserves business, I met him for a very lengthy coffee to pick his brain and get advice.
Christine Ferber is internationally known for her preserves and as an accomplished patissiere. Her book Mes Confitures is amongst my favorites—of all my cookbooks. Her Fig, Orange, and Walnut preserve recipe is outstanding, and one that I riff on constantly.
Thermometers: I personally prefer using a thermometer for making preserves, but that doesn’t mean you don’t use your senses as well—as you gain experience in making preserves, you can tell a lot by the sound of it cooking, the rate at which the mixture bubbles, and the color the preserves turn. Unfortunately, thermometers are notoriously inaccurate; I make sure to replace mine when needed, and to test them in a pot of boiling water to make sure they register correctly (212ºf at sea level).
I found this thermometer to be more consistently accurate than most I’ve purchased; I’ve used it for about 6 months now, and so far it’s held it’s accuracy well and it reads more quickly than most, which is a bonus when cooking something like preserves.
Scales: I have this OXO scale and really love it, and it goes up to 11 pounds (4.99 kilos). I’ve heard good things about this Amazon Basics scale, too.
Pots: As for preserving pots, for small batches like the recipe below, you can use a regular stainless steel or enamel pot, although the thicker/heavier the material, the better for evenly conducting heat. I used a 9-quart enameled Dutch oven for this recipe, which I like because it gives you plenty of head space. When I make large batches of preserves, I’ll pull out my Mauviel 14-quart capacity copper preserving pan that is low and wide for rapid moisture evaporation. It’s pricy (all copper), but if you do a lot of preserving, it’s a dream to work with.
Jars: The store I went to only had really small or really large Ball jars, so I chose the small, 4-ounce jars since I was going to be giving some of this jam away, and I don’t eat jam that quickly in any case, so it’ll stay fresh longer in a small jar. Usually though, if I’m making large batches, I’ll use 8-ounce jars. These Weck jars are gorgeous and a classic.
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