jam question . . .

[KatyTheChickenLady]

I am thinking of adding some chocolate mint to my dark cherry jam for a different twist. I don't want to overpower the cherries though, any sugestions on quantity?

 

[thespinningcottage]

I have a recipe for pear & chocolate jam. It uses 1/3 pound (a little over 5 oz.) bittersweet chocolate, chopped and stirred into the jam just before ladling into the jars. I hope this helps! Good luck.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
Do you like it?

 

[thespinningcottage]

It's okay... I'm not a big fan of mixing chocolate with fruit personally, but I think your combination sounds scrumptious.

 

[lisahaschickens]

katylester -

I am guessing you mean you want to add mint (as in the herb) to the jam, and the variety you have growing is "chocolate mint," am I correct?

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
correct, any thoughts?

 

[lisahaschickens]

my only thought is that I would go easy on the chocolate mint... it's really strong, at least the stuff I grow is. It would probably be easier to use peppermint, which is milder, if you have it. Then you could test it and graduate to the chocolate mint (a kind of spearmint) next time. If all you have is the chocolate mint, then I would suggest maybe scaling things way down and making like 1 cup of cherry mint "sauce" first to test the amounts... like put a splash of water in a pan, and add a little sugar, cherries and some fresh mint. Cook a while until the cherries give up their juices. Taste along the way. Remove the mint when the flavor is strong enough. Then you can thicken that small amount of sauce with a little corn starch and put it on icecream or whatever, and then scale up the amounts for making jam. A least... that would be what I would do... but I'm just thinking this up on the fly.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
perfect that's the suggestion I was looking for! I'll make a sauce first get the percetage correct and "taste". I like the idea of chocolate mint going for the chocolate covered cherry idea. Just want to try something different in sweet cherry jam. I found two uniique suggestions on the internet; black pepper and the other was bay leaf. but I didn't want to do a whole batch . . . making a test sauce is the perfect solution I don'tknow why I didn't think of it!