Pumpkin and orange jam: smooth, golden, for winter toast
Pumpkin on its own is sweet and bland; with the juice and zest of two oranges, a lemon and cinnamon it turns into a jam in which hardly anyone spots the pumpkin. The pumpkin cubes cook forty minutes in the juice until translucent, then a blender turns them into a smooth, golden purée. The citrus brings flavour and tang, but pumpkin remains a low-acid vegetable: keep this jam in the fridge or freezer, not the pantry.
Your own work in that: 35 min.
- Pumpkin and citrus 20 min
- Cooking 40 min
- Blending and testing 15 min
- Pasteurising 10 min
- Cooling 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 donePeel and cut the pumpkin
Halve the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds, peel (Hokkaido can keep its skin) and cut into 2 cm cubes. Weigh it: you need 1.5 kg peeled. Scald seven 250 ml jars and their lids with boiling water.
Ingredients: 1500 g pumpkin · 2 pcs oranges · 1 pcs lemon · 600 g sugar · 1 pcs cinnamon stick · 100 ml water
TipButternut gives a smoother, more orange jam; Hokkaido a more intense flavour. Avoid watery giant pumpkins: the jam is bland and takes ages to reduce.
2 cm cubes, 1.5 kg peeledCitrus zest and juice
Wash the oranges well, grate the zest finely without the pith, squeeze the juice from the oranges and the lemon. You should have about 250 ml of juice.
Zest without pith, a cup of juiceCook until translucent
Bring the pumpkin, juice, zest, water, sugar and cinnamon to the boil in a wide pot. Simmer covered 40 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until the cubes are soft and translucent and the liquid thick. Put a saucer in the freezer.
TipSugar from the start, not the end: it draws the water out of the pumpkin and lets it cook in syrup rather than water. The lid keeps the moisture in so the pumpkin softens before the syrup catches.
Forty minutes, cubes translucentBlend and thicken
Remove the cinnamon and blend the jam smooth with a stick blender. Cook uncovered another about 10 minutes, stirring constantly, because a thick purée likes to catch and spit, until a spoon drawn across the bottom leaves a clear trail for a moment.
Smooth, golden, stir without stoppingThe saucer test
Put a drop of jam on the cold saucer, wait half a minute, push with a finger. It should hold its shape, not run or weep a watery ring, and the finger should leave a clean trail. Pumpkin is low in pectin, so the jam won't set like currant jam; it thickens more like a fruit butter. If it runs, cook 5 minutes more and test again.
Holds its shape, the trail stays: readyJars and pasteurising
Spoon the hot jam into the hot jars to 1 cm from the rim, wipe the rims and screw on the lids. Stand in a pot on a cloth, add hot water to three-quarters of their height and pasteurise 10 minutes from the boil. Lift out and leave to cool. Pasteurising extends its life, but it does not make pumpkin jam a pantry preserve: pumpkin is low in acid, and a dense purée cannot be rid of botulism spores in a home pot. So keep the jars in the fridge, for up to 4 weeks; for longer, transfer the jam to containers and freeze (up to a year).
Hot into hot, ten minutes in water
Before you start
With ginger and chilli
3 slices of ginger instead of cinnamon and a pinch of chilli: a jam for cheese and roast meat, not only toast.
With apples
Half pumpkin, half tart apples: more pectin, the jam sets faster and tastes fruitier.
It didn't set
Not reduced enough: pumpkin is low in pectin and thickens mainly by evaporation. Pour it back into the pot, cook uncovered 10 minutes, stirring, and spoon into clean, scalded jars.