Quick and Easy 30 minutes Homemade Pineapple Jam (30 分钟简易凤梨酱）

INTRODUCTION

Many readers are asking me for pineapple jam recipe for the preparation of pineapple tarts。 If you are interested on the recipe of pineapple tarts, you can refer to these two posts:

• Open Faced Pineapple Tarts (凤梨挞）

• What A Golf Ball Have To Do With A Pineapple? Well, It Is The Famous South East Asian Pineapple Tarts (凤梨酥）

I have prepared some homemade pineapple jams in the previous years but it was not fun..as it took very long hours to prepare the jam.. It ended up that it was not really cost effective to do so after one factored into the gas bills.

Yesterday, I have decided to buy some pineapples and share with readers the process of preparing pineapple jam. However, I did not intend to follow the traditional method as most people would not have time to do this at home. It can take hours before the jam was prepared. In addition, there are already many recipes in the internet with regards to the preparation in the traditional manner.

I have explored many avenues from pressure cooker, rice cooker, bread machine etc. and decided to try out this microwave version. It took me about 30 minutes to get my jam done, significantly shorter than the traditional method and saves lots on gases, electricity etc.…Of course 30 minutes refer to the total cooking time..Traditional methods can take 1.5-2 hours..

In my humble opinion, preparing pineapple jams involved a few steps.

• Making the pineapple puree
• Cooking the puree such that the pineapple flesh (pineapple) separated from its juices.
• Evaporation of the pineapple juices to retain the fibre.
• Thickening of the cooked pineapple flesh to become jammy.

These were the juices extracted from about 1.7 kg of fresh pineapples.. It weighed almost 700 grams..The traditional method basically are taking long hours just to cook and evaporate these 700 ml of juices.. Imagine how long it will take for you to evaporate all these liquid into gas under medium heat over the stove. I have collected the juices to cut short the timing. One may argued that the jam will be less flavourful, but personally, I do not think that it will make a huge difference in flavour.. I am more concern about energy conservation than pleasing my taste bud. Ha-ha. I do not throw away the juices, I drank them as cooked fruit juices..

This is a rather flexible recipe, you can always adjust your sweetness, consistency and colour at the last stage of cooking..

---

WHAT IS REQUIRED

• 1,500 grams of pineapple, shelled
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
• 50 grams of brown sugar
• 150 grams of castor sugar

Note: The sugar is for reference and you can gradually until it suits your taste bud. Brown sugar is for colouring purposes to give a shade of golden brown. You can use more or less to reach your desired coloured tone. In general, it is still not sweet for my taste buds.

---

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Skinned the pineapple and cut into big chunks. Use a blender to blend the pineapple until puree form. If you do not want fibrous pineapple jam, you will have to blend it longer until as fine as possible.

• Transfer the pineapple juice to a microwavable container. Microwave for 10 minutes.

• After the first 10 minutes, you will see that some fibres and the juices have separated. Sift the fibres and the juices can be drank as pineapple juices. Microwave for another 10 minutes. If it is still too watery, sift again. The juices secreted, if any, will be minimal now.

• Add the cinnamon powder and sugar gradually until it reached your desired sweetness.  Stir until well mixed. Transfer the sweetened puree to a non stick wok or frying pan (bigger wok will expedite the stir frying). Stir fry under medium heat until your desired texture and colour. As you stir fry, the colour will darken due to the caramelization of sugar. In addition, more water will be evaporated making it drier. The more sugar you have added, the more sticky it will be as syrup will be formed. Overall, it took me about 8-10 minutes to stir fry until my desired texture and colour.

• Let it cool completely before shaping.  If subsequently you find that the jam is too liquid, send back to wok and stir fry again to get rid of more water content.

Note:

• My microwave have only one function to cook without other power selection button. Use the maximum power button to expedite the process if your microwave oven have such buttons.

• If you do not like to skin the pineapple, you can go to the fruit stall, buy the pineapple from the seller, pay additional 50 cents and ask the seller to do the job for you.

• If you prefer, you can add 1 tablespoon of butter or ghee to add flavour and shininess to the jam.

• If your jam is overly sweet, add some lemon juice to negate the sweetness.

---

 

CONCLUSION

This is the short cut method and you may want to give it a try. Homemade pineapple jam may not be necessary cheaper than those that are commercially sold. In fact, I bought 3 pineapples for S$4.50 and got about 1 kg of jam. This was almost the same price as the ready made. However, homemade pineapple jam have the advantages for you to adjust the sweetness and when baked, it is not as dry as the commercial jam. 

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

 

---

• For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 26 November 2014)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts. Also follow me at INSTAGRAM for more personal sharing/

• You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP  to see more recipes. Currently there are about 11,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can  post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.

• If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.