Apricot Jam, Packed Dry
Dried apricots and sugar cooked back into jam on the stove at camp.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 3.2 oz
- cal / oz
- 100
- protein
- 2 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 15 min
- total time
- 20 min
- water
- 200 ml boiled
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Breakfast
- Snack
- Canister stove
- Liquid fuel
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Basic
Ingredients
| Dried apricots | 1 cup | chopped small at home, unsulphured are darker but fine |
|---|---|---|
| Sugar | 1/3 cup | the original uses roughly equal weight sugar to fruit; dried fruit needs less |
| Lemon juice powder or citric acid | 1/2 tsp | stands in for the sour of underripe fresh apricots |
| Salt | a pinch | |
| Water | 200 ml | from your bottle |
Method
- Put the chopped apricots and 200 ml of water in the pot. Let them sit ten minutes off the heat if you have time. They soften faster.
- Bring it to a simmer over a low flame. High heat scorches sugar onto the pot and you will be scrubbing it in the dark.
- Stir in the sugar, the citric acid, and the salt. Keep it barely bubbling.
- Stir often for about twelve minutes, mashing the fruit against the side of the pot with the spoon. It goes from chunky to thick and glossy.
- Pull it off when a spoon dragged across the bottom leaves a track that closes slowly. It sets up more as it cools.
The source is a preserving recipe: fresh apricots, slightly underripe for the pectin, buried in an equal weight of sugar overnight and then boiled down for jars. None of that survives a trip. Fresh stone fruit bruises in a pack, the overnight maceration needs a counter, and canning needs a kitchen.
Dried apricots get you to the same place from the other direction. The water is already gone, so you add a measured amount back instead of boiling it off for an hour. Sugar drops to a third of a cup because the fruit is concentrated sweetness already, and citric acid replaces the tartness that underripe fresh apricots would have brought. Fifteen minutes on a low flame, one pot, spread on whatever bread or crackers survived day three.
Packing
Chop the apricots at home and bag them with the sugar, citric acid, and salt. One bag, one pour. Whole dried apricots take twice as long to break down and the sugar clumps if you carry it loose.
Variations
- Skip the sugar entirely and simmer the apricots down into a plain fruit butter. Less sweet, fewer calories, still spreadable.
- A split cardamom pod or a strip of dried orange peel in the pot changes the whole thing.
- Loosen it with extra water and stir it into oatmeal instead of spreading it.
https://savoriurbane.com/dulceata-de-caise-sau-marmelada-reteta-de-pe-vremuri