Pineapple Jam Done!

I mentioned in my previous posting that the pineapple jam I bought from Baking's Corner is a bit too sour... My friends who ordered pineapple tarts from me are mainly guys or lady ordering it for the hubby, and knowing that most guys prefer the jam to be on the sweeter side instead of more sour taste, so I decided to buy some pineapples and cook with some of the jam that I bought. 

I went to the market and bought 3 pineapples, which I had asked the fruit seller to reserve for me the day earlier. The price given to me was $1.50 each and extra 50 cts each if need them to peel the pineapples for me. When I was at the market, I didn't see the guy who I spoke to, so I asked a younger chap. He told me it's $2 each without peeling service and $2.50 each with peeling service, hmm... more expensive! I decided to wait for that particular guy to turn up at the market and went to do some marketing while waiting. After I bought fish and vegetables, and went back to the fruit stall, that guy had turned up, so sealed the deal at $2 each as I opted for peeling service. It's a great decision as it saves me the trouble and time spent for peeling the pineapples. Only downside is that the way they peeled the pineapples is a bit wasteful... hint - just see the above picture of the pineapples after peeling. 

I choose to grate the pineapples instead of blending as I find that the pulp from blending lack of fibre. The only thing that I blended was the core... I used to discard the core, as taught by my mother. After reading some blogs that we could also blend and add the core, I decided to try this time round. 

There's several blogs sharing how to cook pineapple jam, so won't go into the details of cooking it. However, just to note that if you want to recook the jam, after adding the cooked jam to the uncooked jam, remember to stir the cooked jam and ensure that it doesn't stick to the pot/wok until is is blended with the uncooked jam. I'm suggesting this because cooked jam is already drier version, just like the jam towards the end of cooking process when it thickens, so it may burn if you don't blend it with the uncooked jam that's pretty much still rather watery.

The final stage of the jam that was cooked with natural preservatives - lemon juice, cinnamon stick, cloves and star anise. The 3 pineapples were approximately 2.1kg after peeling and before grating. I used 1.2kg of the bought jam to cook. The final weight was close to 2.2kg. Hence, 3 pineapples yield about 1kg of pineapple jam, shall record this down for future reference.

Upcoming after cooking the jam is trying out to make arrowhead (ci gu) chips, hopefully I'll succeed! 

Sidenote: The jam that I bought from Baking's Corner wasn't exactly 1kg as the weight includes the weight of the plastic container (~27g). This translates to making 2 to 3 lesser pineapple tarts, hahahaha...