How to make apricot jam. Apricot jam without cooking. Apricot jam with pits - recipe step by step

It is believed that apricots came to us from China. This is not known for certain, but now apricots are popular both in Asia and Europe.

These beautiful, round, yellowish-red drupes with velvety skin and almond-like seeds are not only tasty, but also healthy.

Apricot pulp contains inulin, fiber, sugar, starch, and organic acids. The fruits contain vitamins C, PP, P, B1, B2. But most of all they contain carotene - vitamin A. Apricots also contain magnesium, potassium, phosphorus, iron, cobalt, copper, manganese.

Apricots are an excellent preventative against cardiovascular diseases. Dried apricots have a diuretic effect.

These fruits contain a large amount of iron. They are recommended for people suffering from anemia and anemia, as they increase the level of hemoglobin in the blood.

Apricots must be included in the diet of people engaged in mental activity, because phosphorus and magnesium are useful for the active functioning of the brain.

Of course, it is better to eat apricots raw, but in order to enjoy their taste in winter, the fruits are dried and also preserved: compotes, jams, and preserves are made.

There are many ways to make jam. It is cooked from whole fruits, cut in half, into slices. Jam is also prepared with kernels, but this option is only suitable if the seeds (kernels) are sweet. Even the most sophisticated gourmet will appreciate this jam.

Subtleties of cooking

In order for the jam to be of high quality, the fruits must be ripe, healthy and free of worms. Green apricots are not suitable for jam. Such jam will be tasteless and flavorless. Broken, crushed and overripe fruits are also not used, because they will boil over. You can only make jam and marmalade from them.
Preserving the shape of the fruit depends on the cooking method. It must be carried out in stages so that the sugar penetrates into the fruit gradually. If you cover the apricots with sugar and immediately set them to cook, the sugar will quickly fill the intercellular space, the juice will release into syrup and the apricots will boil, turning into porridge.
During cooking, the jam must not be stirred, otherwise the fruits will lose their shape. The basin can only be shaken slightly.
Foam, which will certainly appear on the surface in large quantities, must be removed with a slotted spoon or spoon.
In order for the finished product to look beautiful, the apricots must be the same size.
If the jam is made from whole apricots, they are first pricked in several places and blanched for five minutes at 80-90°. Then cool quickly.
When cooking apricots in halves, first cut them and carefully remove the pit. Large apricots are divided into two halves and cut into slices.
Jars for packaging jam must be thoroughly washed, doused with boiling water and dried well in the sun or in the oven. Do not pour jam into wet jars. Drops of moisture getting into the jam can cause mold and spoilage.
If the jam is rolled up with tin lids, then it is poured hot, filling the jars as completely as possible. This jam is stored well in an ordinary room. The main thing is that no light falls on it and there are no heating devices nearby.
But most often the jam is packaged in jars already cooled. Then you can cover it with regular parchment. This jam is stored in a cool, dark place.
To make jam with seeds, varieties with sweet kernels are selected. The fact is that bitter kernels contain the glycoside amygdalin. If the jam is stored for a long time, then this substance begins to produce poisonous hydrocyanic acid. Such preparation can cause poisoning. Therefore, jam with seeds or kernels can be stored for no more than one year.

Apricot jam with pits: recipe one

apricots – 1 kg;
sugar – 1.5 kg;
water – 400 ml;
citric acid – 3 g.

Cooking method

Select ripe fruits without wormholes. Remove the stems. Wash well.
Pour water into a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Immerse the apricots in boiling water and blanch for two minutes at 90°. Then cool under running cold water. Wait for the liquid to drain. Then each fruit needs to be pricked with something sharp.
Pour sugar into a cooking basin and pour water. Place on the stove and cook the syrup.
Dip the apricots into the syrup, add citric acid and bring to a boil, removing the foam. Remove from stove.
Leave the bowl of jam to cool for 8 hours.
Then put the jam back on the stove and bring to a boil again. Make sure it doesn't burn: cook it over low heat. A second time, remove the jam from the stove and let it cool for eight hours.
For the third time, place the bowl of jam on the stove and cook for some more time. You can check readiness by placing a drop of syrup on a saucer. It must keep its shape. You can also determine the readiness of the jam by the foam. By the end of cooking, the foam collects in the center of the basin, rather than spreading out to the edges.
Cool the jam completely and put it into jars. Cover with parchment paper, tie with twine or secure with an elastic band. The jam can be sealed hermetically. To do this, place it hot in dry jars, cover with lids and immediately seal with a special seaming machine. Cool.

Apricot jam with pits: recipe two

Ingredients for five 0.5 liter containers:

apricots – 1 kg;
sugar – 1.25 kg;
water – 2.5 tbsp.

Cooking method

Select only ripe apricots without wormholes for jam. Remove the stems. Wash the fruits.
Pour water into a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Dip the apricots into it and blanch for five minutes at a temperature of 75-80°.
Cool quickly by submerging in a colander in cold water.
Prick each fruit with something sharp.
In a separate pan, cook syrup from 800 g of sugar and water.
Place all the apricots in a bowl. Pour hot syrup over. Leave for 4 hours.
Place on the fire and cook at a low boil for 5 minutes, removing any foam that appears.
Remove from heat again and leave for 10 hours.
Add the remaining sugar, put on fire and cook at low boil until tender.
Cool in a bowl and then transfer to clean, dry jars. Cover with parchment paper. If you want to roll up the jars with tin lids, then package the jam hot, filling the container as completely as possible. Turn the sealed jars upside down and cool in this position.

Apricot jam, sliced, pitted

Ingredients for six 0.5 liter containers:

apricots – 1 kg;
sugar – 1.5 kg;
water – 500 ml;
fruit essence – 10 drops;
vanilla to taste.

Cooking method

Wash the ripe apricots and remove the stems.
Cut each fruit in half along the groove. Remove the seeds.
Pour sugar into a saucepan, pour water. Boil the syrup. If it turns out cloudy, strain through several layers of gauze.
Place the apricots in a cooking bowl, cut side up. Carefully pour hot syrup over. Leave for a day so that the fruits are saturated with it.
The next day, pour the syrup into a saucepan and boil. Pour it over the apricots again. Leave it for another day.
On the third day, place the bowl of apricots on low heat, bring to a boil and cook until the thickness you need. At the end of cooking, add the essence and vanillin diluted in a small amount of syrup.
Remove from stove. Cool completely. Place in clean and dry jars. Cover with parchment paper.

Apricot jam “Pyatiminutka”

Ingredients for five 0.5 liter containers:

apricots – 1 kg;
sugar – 1.5 kg;
water – 400 ml.

Cooking method

Wash ripe apricots that are not damaged by insects and diseases and remove the stalks. Cut in half. Remove the seeds. If the fruits are large, cut them into slices.
Place the apricots, center side up, in a cooking bowl, sprinkling each layer with sugar. Leave for 6-8 hours (longer possible). During this time, the fruits will give juice, which will partially dissolve the sugar.
After this time, pour water into the basin and place it on the stove. If you want thick jam, you don’t need to add water. Bring to a boil over medium heat. To prevent the jam from acquiring the consistency of jam, do not stir it during cooking. You can only shake the pelvis a little or twist it from side to side. Cook for 5 minutes, being sure to remove any foam.
Then remove the bowl from the stove and let the jam brew for 3-5 hours.
Bring to a boil over low heat and cook again for 5 minutes.
After 5 hours of infusion, repeat this procedure again.
Pour hot jam into prepared, clean and dried jars and immediately roll up the lids. Turn it upside down and leave it in this position to cool.

Apricot jam “Royal”

Ingredients for three 0.5 liter containers:

apricots – 1 kg;
sugar – 400 g;
water – 250 ml.

Cooking method

Ripe but strong apricots are suitable for this jam. Sort them out and remove the stems. Then wash the fruits well and dry.
From each apricot, making a small cut along the groove, squeeze out the pit.
Break the seeds in a way convenient for you. Peel the kernels from the skin. To make the skins easy to remove, immerse them in boiling water and keep there for a few minutes. Although you can skip this step and use the kernels in an unpurified form.
Stuff the apricots with kernels, inserting them into the slot instead of pits.
Place the apricots in a cooking bowl.
Place sugar in a saucepan and add water. Boil the syrup. Pour it over the fruits, bring to a boil and remove from the stove. Leave for 10 hours to infuse.
Then put it back on low heat, bring to a boil, cook for 10-15 minutes over low heat, remembering to remove the foam.
Remove the basin from the stove and leave it to steep again for 10 hours.
Bring to a final boil and cook for 10 minutes.
While hot, place the apricot jam into clean, dry jars. Seal tightly with tin lids. If you plan to cover the jars with parchment paper, then the jam must be completely cooled in a basin and only then packaged.

Note to the hostess

If you are afraid that the kernels in jam can harm your health, you can safely replace them with something else: almonds, walnuts or hazelnuts.

You can add cinnamon, lemon zest, cloves and other spices to taste to apricot jam. But there should not be a lot of them, so as not to drown out the natural apricot aroma.

Each housewife prepares apricot jam in her own way. Now we’ll tell you how to cook it in slices in syrup.

Apricot jam slices in syrup - recipe

Ingredients:

filtered water – 300 ml;
granulated sugar – 1.1 kg;
firm apricots – 900 g.

Preparation

For this jam, we need firm, even slightly unripe fruits. Wash them thoroughly, dry them a little, remove the seeds. Place the slices in a wide enamel container, preferably a basin. Cook separately. Immediately pour the hot apricot slices. Let it sit for 12 hours. Now drain the syrup, let it boil and pour it into the apricots again. Let it brew again. And again, carefully drain the syrup, boil, pour in the apricot slices and place the container on low heat. To ensure that the slices remain intact, it is better not to stir the jam with a spoon, but to shake it gently. Be sure to skim off any foam that forms. Boil the jam for an hour until the syrup has a beautiful golden color. We check the readiness of the jam by dropping a drop onto a clean, dry plate; if it retains its shape and does not spread, there is no need to cook the jam any more.

Apricot jam in syrup for the winter

Ingredients:

firm apricots – 1 kg;
purified water – 250 ml;
granulated sugar – 450 g.

Preparation

We sort the apricots, wash them, remove the pits and remove the skin. We break the pit and put the kernels into the apricots. Place them in a fireproof form. Pour sugar into a saucepan, pour in 250 ml of water, and place on fire. Cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and immediately pour into the apricots. Cool, carefully pour it into the pan, boil again and pour over the apricots. We repeat the procedure 3 more times. Then we place the hot jam into jars and seal them.

Ingredients:

apricots – 600 g;
peeled kernels – 60 g;
purified water – 150 ml;
granulated sugar – 450 ml.

Preparation

Wash the apricots thoroughly, divide them into halves and remove the pits. Now prepare the sugar syrup for apricot jam - add sugar to boiling water and simmer over low heat until it dissolves. Immediately pour the hot syrup over the apricot slices. Let it brew for about an hour, then place it on low heat and let it boil. Boil for a couple of minutes and remove from the stove. Grind the walnut kernels into small pieces. Place the jam on the fire again, add the nuts, stir and set aside after boiling. We repeat the procedure a couple of times with nuts. After this, pour our apricot jam, filled with syrup, into jars and twist.

Of the huge variety of apricot jam recipes, the most popular are those that involve preliminary preparation of sugar syrup, which is subsequently poured over apricot fruits. With this method of cooking jam, the shape of the slices or whole fruits is preserved as much as possible, which has a positive effect, first of all, on the appearance of the workpiece. In addition, some recipes allow you to avoid cooking the apricots themselves by using hot sugar syrup, which also allows you to preserve the fresh taste and amazing aroma of the delicacy.

Below we will offer options for preparing syrup for apricot jam and talk about the intricacies of using it in practice to obtain the ideal taste of the preparation.

How to prepare syrup for apricot jam?

Ingredients:

Calculation for 1 kg of apricots:

purified water – 250 ml;
granulated sugar – 1.2 kg.

Preparation

To prepare the syrup, in this case, mix sugar syrup and purified water in a saucepan, then place the vessel on moderate heat and heat with continuous stirring until all sugar crystals dissolve and boil. Pour the resulting syrup over previously washed and pitted apricots. We leave the fruits in the syrup for ten hours, after which we pour the aromatic liquid back into the pan, let it boil and simmer for seven minutes. Pour the sweet liquid over the apricots again and leave again for ten hours. We repeat the procedure a couple more times, after which we once again fill the apricots with syrup, boil, without disturbing, for seven minutes together with the fruits and place them in sterile jars for storage.

How to cook sugar syrup for apricot jam “Five Minute”?

Ingredients:

Calculation for 1 kg of apricots:

purified water – 650 ml;
granulated sugar – 650 g.

Preparation

To prepare Pyatiminutka apricot jam, less concentrated sugar syrup is often used. This preparation turns out to be aromatic, retains a maximum of vitamins and has a fairly liquid consistency. “Pyatiminutka” jam is especially in harmony with it; it is added along with slices of fruit when preparing jelly, and also complements cakes with it, using a liquid base for the preparation, and filling the cream with pieces of apricots for the layer.

Sugar syrup is prepared traditionally by mixing water and granulated sugar and heating the mass until all crystals dissolve and boil. In this case, apricots must be taken with dense pulp or even slightly unripe, washed and removed from the seeds. If desired, the fruit slices can be left whole or cut into several parts or chopped into cubes.

Pour boiling syrup over the prepared fruits and leave until completely cooled, but not less than five hours. Then drain the syrup and boil for a minute. We repeat the procedure five times, after which we boil the syrup together with the apricots for the last time, boil the mixture for five minutes and pour it into sterile jars.

How to make syrup for apricot jam with lemon juice and ginger?

Ingredients:

Calculation for 1 kg of apricots:

lemons – 280 g;
ginger root – 30 g or to taste;
purified water – 210 ml;
granulated sugar – 950 g.

Preparation

This recipe for making sugar syrup allows you to get an incredibly aromatic and piquant preparation, the originality of which is achieved by adding lemon juice and ginger root.

Pour water into a suitable container and add granulated sugar. Let the contents boil and the sugar dissolve with continuous stirring, then squeeze the lemon juice into the syrup, add the peeled and cut into circles or cubes ginger root and boil the mass for ten minutes. For an even richer taste, you can add a few kernels extracted from apricot kernels. Pour the resulting spicy syrup over the prepared apricot slices and leave until completely cool. We repeat the procedure three times, the last time we put it on the fire together with the apricots, boil it to the desired thickness and pour it into prepared sterile containers.

Of all the jams that my mother makes, I love apricot jam the most. I wait all year for summer, when these orange fruits appear on the market. And as soon as the apricot season begins, I take away what is called the soul. But the harvest season tends to end quickly, so you still need to have time to prepare apricots for the winter. When I was little, my mother made a lot of apricot jam, because she knew that we children simply loved it. Time passed, I had my own family, a husband, a daughter and a son, and suddenly it turned out that I was no longer destined to enjoy apricot jam alone. Both husband and son prefer this delicacy to any other. Jam quickly disappears from the pantry and there is not enough of it until spring. Now in the summer we have to cook a lot more of this jam.

I suggest you make apricot jam according to your mother’s recipe.

I give you the proportions for 1 kg of apricots, based on your quantity and the volume of the container in which the jam will be cooked, you can choose the ideal ones for yourself.

Ingredients:

Apricots – 1 kilogram;
Sugar – 1 kilogram;
Water – 1 glass.

Cooking process:

Various methods are used to make apricot jam. This jam needs to be cooked in three batches. It is cooked both with and without seeds. We will make jam from pitted apricots. So, we take the selected apricots, these can be either purebred varieties or ordinary zherdels (zherdels, they are also wild apricots). But it’s better, of course, when the fruits are large and sweet. And they should not be overripe, otherwise the apricots will definitely boil, and instead of jam we will end up with jam. We carefully rinse them under water, break them in two and remove the pit.

We leave the apricot fruits in halves. And if the apricots are very small, then you can not divide them into slices, but do this: very carefully remove the pit from the fruit through a cut at the top, and place a nut there, for example, from the same extracted pits.

Someone pierces cut apricots several times with a toothpick so that the syrup in which they will be boiled penetrates more easily into the fruit. We never do this (it’s very painstaking work), but simply let the apricots brew longer.

So, our apricots are divided into slices. We place them in the container in which we will cook our jam. My mother usually cooks in a basin. If you don't have one, a stainless steel pan will do. The main thing is that it is wide.

I remember that my mother used to sprinkle apricots with sugar, and they stood until they gave juice. Then she abandoned this cooking method because the slices were overcooked. Now we need to cook the syrup. To do this, we take sugar with a small amount of water, heat it in a container in which we will cook the jam until completely dissolved. We remove the foam. The fact that the syrup is ready will be evident by the fact that it will become thick, slightly viscous and change its color to slightly golden. If you drop a drop of syrup onto a plate, and this drop does not spread, but retains its shape, then the syrup is ready.

We transfer the apricots that are waiting for us into a basin and carefully level them with the syrup. The poles are filled with syrup, and not covered with sugar, so that the slices do not lose their shape and do not boil over. Next, put the basin on the stove and bring the apricots in syrup to a boil. After this, the jam must be cooled completely. This concludes our first run. The sugar is hot enough that even as the jam cools, the apricots themselves will continue to cook.

We start the second batch when the jam has completely cooled down, mothers boil the apricot jam for the first time in the evening, and the second cooking begins in the morning. As a rule, she did this before leaving for work. We put the dishes back on the stove, bring to a boil over low heat and after boiling, cook for two minutes, then remove from the heat and cool our jam completely again. You need to stir it carefully so as not to damage the apricot slices.

While the jam is cooling a second time, we have time and can prepare the jars for rolling. To do this, we wash them very thoroughly under running water. You still need to do sterilization. We have already described in detail how to sterilize jars for preparations in different ways in one of our issues.

The third time we cook the apricot jam for ten whole minutes after boiling, after which we transfer it into prepared jars and roll it up with a key. After rolling the jars, you need to turn them upside down and let them cool in this form.

Our wonderful thing is ready. It looks simply wonderful: pieces of wonderful fruit float in a thick, honey-colored syrup. From such cooking, in three stages, the apricot slices remained whole and dense, and did not become overcooked.

I will be very glad if you liked the recipe for my mother’s apricot jam. Share it with your friends and let them make this wonderful jam for themselves this summer. As you can see, there is nothing difficult to prepare. Prepare it for your children, maybe they will enjoy taking pieces of apricots out of the jar, as my son with a sweet tooth likes to do. Well, now I’ll just buy more apricots so that there will be enough for me and my dear family in the winter.

Bon appetit and good recipes!

Best regards, Anyuta.