Pitted Apricot Jam in the Slow Cooker

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   How do you make pitted apricot jam in a slow cooker? Get your ingredients ready. Choose apricots that are ripe but firm — too-soft fruit turns to mush as it cooks. They should naturally be sweet, since you use very little sugar. The lemon juice acts as a preservative and adds a pleasant tang to the sweet jam.

2. Step 2:

   

   Sort through the apricots, discarding any spoiled fruit and debris. Rinse them well under cold running water and let them drain in a colander.

3. Step 3:

   

   Pit the apricots. Mine were nice and ripe, so they pulled apart into halves easily; if yours are harder to split, cut them with a knife. Put the apricot halves straight into the slow-cooker pot — I suggest weighing the empty pot first so you can easily figure out the weight of the fruit later.

4. Step 4:

   

   Weigh the pitted apricots. This jam uses a 2:1 ratio — one part sugar for every two parts pitted apricots. I had a kilogram of apricots, so I measured out 500 grams of sugar.

5. Step 5:

   

   Cover the apricots with the sugar and let them sit a while so the fruit releases its juice. How long depends on how juicy the fruit is and how much you have.

6. Step 6:

   

   Squeeze the juice from the lemon, remove the seeds, and pour it in with the apricots. Adjust the amount to taste, but don't skip it entirely — it's better with it.

7. Step 7:

   

   My apricots released their juice in about an hour.

8. Step 8:

   

   Set the pot in the slow cooker. Depending on your model, choose a program to cook the jam — "Stew" or "Bake" both work. Mine has both, so I used "Stew." Cooking time is 1 hour. After half an hour I checked, and the fruit had given off a lot of juice and was nearly boiling in it, with no foam. I gently stirred the jam, closed the lid, and let it keep cooking.

9. Step 9:

   

   After an hour, the jam is ready. It's fairly thin even though there's no water in it. Turn off the slow cooker.

10. Step 10:

    

    Sterilize the jars and lids. (See the link at the end of the recipe for sterilizing methods and other useful tips.) Pour the hot jam into the jars.

11. Step 11:

    

    Screw the lids on and leave the jars to cool completely, then move them to a cold spot. Since this jam is low in sugar, it should be kept in the refrigerator or a cellar. It's thin while hot but thickens a bit as it cools. From a kilogram of apricots I got about 1.5 liters of finished jam.