Water Bath Canner?

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Bring up this old thread, looking for advice from the home canning and preserving pros...

I'm experimenting with fruit pâte/pastes/membrillo. Made a blackberry-apple pâte the other day, seriously good stuff. But I ended up with a larger batch, more than we will consume anytime soon.

So to my question: None of my recipes have you do any special preservation, simply put in an air-tight container and refrigerate. Recipe says they will keep two weeks. I'd like to find a way to preserve a fruit pâte so that it lasts longer.

I do low sugar, so that's a shelf life issue.

I suppose could simply make the paste, put in glass jars and water bath can it as I do a jam, but then I'd end up with really just a thick jam. I prefer to make these in forms, mostly so they look nice on a cheese platter.

Do any of you do formed fruit pâte? If so, any preservation tips?

Many thanks.

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I use my water bath canner for all fruit things, just use smaller and bigger jars depending on what you want to do with it later. If you use sufficient citric acid and water bath the appropriate times, the shelf life will be a lot longer.

https://www.bernardin.ca/recipes/default.htm?Lang=EN-US

https://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes/

3
If I were to put a formed pâte in a jar for water bath canning, wouldn't the form melt?

Maybe if instead of setting the pâte in forms I put the paste in a Weck jar, water bath canned as usual, then when needed try to slide the paste out of the jar and slice it into servings I'd get something 'formed' enough to put on a platter?

Or perhaps use those tiny single serving jars, can as usual, and put the jar itself on the platter?

Hmmmm... Off to look for more decorative jars...

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Use the small tulip weck jars? And go to Landi, they have loads on sale right now

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Hi meloncollie,

Can you share the recipe of this blackberry-apple pâte? With usual liver pâte the weck glass method is perfectly ok. You may experiment with Agar-agar, pectin or gelatin.

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No, only liver, which I serve with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Tom

7
As with all my jams, I start with whatever fruit I have from the garden, so portions are not exact.

This is basically a jam recipe, but the liquid is condensed down much more, and more pectin is used.

I used about 4:1 blackberries to apples, maybe had 2 kg blackberries and half kg apples.

I cook the blackberries down then sieve to de-seed them. This can be a laborious process, I usually sieve 3 times.

Secret ingredient: I had about a third of a bottle of sparkling apple juice on hand and nothing to do with it so I dumped that in and cooked it down with the blackberries.

Once you have a concentrated seed-less blackberry juice, grate the apples in, cook until very well cooked. I think I ended up with a bit more than 1/2 a liter of fruit/juice mix.

Add in pectin, I used the Coop Naturaplan, amount according to instructions. Maybe a little less, as the apples are rich in natural pectin.

Note: The instructions are for a jam, but I find the amount given makes a jam waaaaaay too hard set. So I figured that would be a good amount for a pâte like consistency.

Add in sugar to taste. IIRC I might have used a 1/4 or 1/3 cup. Depends entirely on how sweet the fruit is.

Add in a dollop of your favorite liqueur. Used Framboise this time.

(To my taste, sweet liqueurs work best. I am not a fan of grappas, kirsch, calvados etc., I find these too harsh to drink so don't cook with them. But if you like a calvados, perhaps worth a try.)

Poured the liquid mixture into porcelain ramekins as ersatz molds, figuring they wouldn't be too sticky to remove. Fill molds about 2cm, let sit to set. Once set, removed the pâte pieces from the molds, wrapped in cling film, for once happy to have the euro-cling film that doesn't actually cling , put in an air tight box in the fridge.

Made a second batch, added in thyme to make a more savory pâte, used aceto balsamico instead of the liqueur. Next time I might experiment with shallots or garlic as well.

I'm a taste-as-you-go sort of jammer, so I more or less winged it. Only looked up recipes afterwards, when I was trying to figure out how to store the pâte.

I'm too much of a coward to leave things uncanned for very long, so I think I'll go with the Weck jars/slices, that would still give a pretty round piece to decorate a cheese tray.

8

"A third of a bottle of sparkling apple juice." So around 0.5 liter "Süssmost"?

With so much much fruit and additional added sugar I suspect you have a high enough sugar concentration for long term storage.

Next time use a thermometer. First boil water and measure the temperature. Note it, it is the weather, elevation and equipment adjusted boiling temperature of water. If your "jam" boils above this temperature the sugar concentration is high enough. If my research is correct, it is suggested for jams to have a boiling temperature of 5°C above the boiling point of water (normally just stated as 105°C).

Filling in the hot mass in small sterilized Weck pots should be good enough. Just put pots, lids, and rubbers in boiling water, and take them hot right when you need them, Just like you would to it with jam. As far as I understand one of the key points of long time preserving is to have no germs in the containers or product. If you put the hot mass into the hot containers and close them ASAP you do the best you can. You still could sterilize the filled Weck glasses in an other water bath, put I do not think that is necessary.

Only question is how to serve them. Straight from the glass or remove them?

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Süssmost usually isn't sparkling (much, unless it's been left to ferment). Perhaps it was Apfelschorle or Swizly?