When it comes to the garden, the first crops always eager to help start off the season with a flourish are typically rhubarb and asparagus. However I find both foods appear to invoke strong opinions; people seem to either love or hate them. For this post and jam recipe with a fruit leather option I will be featuring the focus on the first one, our good friend rhubarb!

Hopefully you will discover ample reasons to like it, or maybe even develop a greater appreciation for an old friend. As a child, my mother and grandmothers often kicked off the season by letting me help harvest the bright reddish-green rhubarb stalks. They encouraged me to play a part in turning them into something magical from the classic old-fashioned rhubarb bake-goods like turnovers and pies to jars of this delicious jam I’m sharing with you today.

I have one word of caution–please try and remember when you taste it–it is jam… several members of my family, including my Dad, think they can just sit down and eat it like applesauce!! It’s just that good! 😉 So if you have a love affair with rhubarb, or have a abundance of it and need more delicious ways to use it, you should definitely give this timeless family favorite a try! This old-fashioned rhubarb jam recipe is one of the easiest jams to make, and in my family’s option one of the tastiest ways to enjoy rhubarb! A family heirloom which comes from my Grandma’s recipe box, it creates a special spring treat with one of the garden’s earliest crops.

Due to the naturally high levels of pectin contained in the ingredients, this recipe calls for no added pectin. I love this feature as it creates a very simply and easy to make jam with just a limited number of ingredients. (And as an added plus, it is lower in sugar than many rhubarb jam recipes I’ve seen, let alone store-bought jam! Just read the ingredients on the labels and try to find a jam, jelly, or preserve, where sugar is not the primary ingredient. ) The pairing of rhubarb and orange allows rhubarb’s unique acidic tang to take center stage while offering the subtle sweet tones of the orange to shine through in the perfect combination of tart and sweet flavors. Making this inspirational historical homestead recipe a great addition to any breakfast for both die-hard rhubarb fan’s and newbies alike, while the homemade rhubarb fruit leather option creates an great natural and dye-free treat or snack!

So go ahead and push those often expensive as well as limited flavor options of store bought jam and jelly aside and get ready to fall in love with the taste of spring!

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Garden Rhubarb

Before we dig into today’s recipe I wanted to share some fun facts on the plant that makes this great tasting jam possible. Feel free to scroll down for the recipe though, if just making jam is your jam. (pun intended) 😉

Garden Rhubarb is also called pie plant and is an easy to grow perennial. It can be grown from seed or root stock/crowns. If you are in a hurry eat rhubarb, the root stock/crowns will produce larger pick-able plants in a shorted time period.

Being one of the first garden plants to make an appearance in early spring doesn’t come without a few hazards , although frost hardy, I have found the leaves can be susceptible to damage from early spring freezes. However injury can be limited by an early morning watering. As ice box users once commonly knew, 40 degree water melts ice 10 times faster than 80 degree air, so the cold water from your hose works just fine to thaw out rhubarb leaves from an unexpected late spring freeze. Just make sure you keep spraying the plant until the leaves thoroughly un-thaw and become limp. Simply washing the ice crystals off the surface of the leaves will not suffice.
So even though you don’t use the leaves due to an overabundance of caution, the leaves are the manufacturing center for the plant. No leaves means no stalks and therefore no plant! The health of your plants can be very crucial to your rhubarb harvest.

Please note: I DO NOT recommend eating rhubarb leaves, but neither could I find solid scientific evidence to back up the frequently repeated claims of toxicity. Until more research is done, it’s simply better to error on the side of caution.)

Rhubarb is actually part of a family of plants with somewhat different properties and uses. These plants have a broad range in susceptibility to plant diseases, weather likes and dislikes and are wide ranging in terms of ease of growing. I have grown 5 types of Rhubarb (Different Rheum species not merely varieties of Garden Rhubarb, although I’ve grown several of those too as well! ) and none compare to the ease of growing Garden Rhubarb.

The part used in Garden Rhubarb is the stems. They can be green or red depending on the variety. (The medical rhubarb root comes from a different Rheum species.) The stems have a bold, tangy sweet and tart flavor, more reminiscent of the flavor combination found in sour gummy worms than that of lemons. While an acquired taste with many of the younger generations, Rhubarb is a favorite with many of the older members of the community.

As a young child, I used to love picking fresh rhubarb straight from the garden and savoring the tangy sweet-tart juice contained in the stem. Although tasty, keep in mind before you raid your rhubarb patch and start snacking on those raw uncooked stalks in large amounts, people susceptible to kidney stones or with other kidney issues should exercise caution with raw rhubarb.

Recipe

Now onto making our delicious old-fashioned jam recipe! This recipe makes about 3 pints.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 pounds of rhubarb (this came out to roughly 8 cups when chopped into 1/3 to ½ inch pieces)
2 cups sugar (I used GMO-free cane sugar.)
2 teaspoons dried orange zest
1/3 cup orange juice
1/2 cup water

Instructions:

Wash and dice your rhubarb. If you are using older stalks, you may want clean them up a bit by pealing a bit of the tougher outer-side off.

Try and leave as much red skin intact if you wish your finished product to have a slight pink color otherwise it will turn out more green in color. Some recipes will add artificial dye or beet juice to give a reddish color, I tend to just leave each batch natural.

The color you end up with in your final product will also vary based on the variety as well as age of the rhubarb used. There are both red stemmed and green stemmed varieties of garden rhubarb, as well as some that are red when young and green as they mature.

Combine all the ingredients in a large heavy duty pot and place on the stove on a med/low heat.

Resist the urge to add more liquid– as the rhubarb breaks down you will have more then enough! (In fact, if you choose to double the recipe, you do not need to even double the water. A half cup is enough to prevent scorching even for a larger batch.)

At first, only occasional stirring is necessary, but as the mixture starts to thicken, you will need to stir more and more frequently, finishing with stirring constantly. Be cautious, as with any thick boiling hot mixture, it can splatter.

You will need to cook the jam for about 30-45 minutes to reach the desired thickness. This time will vary with the freshness of your rhubarb and your individual stove. (I find it goes faster when I make it on my gas stove then when using my Grandmothers’ old electric stove due to the electric stove burner cycling.)

The jam will naturally thicken more as it cools. You can test the final thickness by taking out a bit on a spoon and letting it cool, if you’re good with the thickness reached then you’re done. If not, cook it a bit more. When satisfied with the thickness, let cool and refrigerate.

Besides refrigerator jam, other variations are possible. Want to preserve the flavor of rhubarb for later in the year? This jam recipe can be canned by follow the instructions for water bathing jams and jellies in our strawberry jam post.

Fruit Leather Instructions

For those wanting to create a chewy fruit leather bursting with flavor, this rhubarb jam works great!

Allow the jam to cool before making the fruit leather. Cover your dehydrator racks with parchment paper and place ½ cup of jam on each. Spread the jam thinly but evenly over the complete area, keeping an one inch margin around the edges. (It got spread a little closer to the edges in the picture below since I had little hands helping with the spreading.) 😉 (I have an Excalibur D900 Food Dehydrator with approximately 15 inch square racks.) You can use fruit leather sheets if you have them, but I actually prefer the parchment paper. This recipe makes 8 sheets.

On a dry day, dehydrate at 135° F for 3 hours for parchment paper; it takes about a half hour longer for the fruit leather sheets. Keep in mind the humidity in the air can make a big difference! If you happen to be making these on a very humid day or during a rainstorm it takes 4 to 4 ½ hours for the fruit leather to dry on parchment paper. Longer still, if you prefer dry rather than gooey-chewy fruit leather.

The finished fruit leather can be peeled off the sheets and cut into pieces or rolled up with the parchment paper and sliced for a classic fruit roll-up look.

Fruit leather rolls easier when warm. I find placing a rubber band around the rolled up fruit leather and parchment paper roll holds it in place well.

If you are making them ahead for an event you may need to hide them, these amazing rhubarb fruit leathers disappear fast around my house! For storage, I have found that nine rolls will fit nicely in a gallon sized resealable bag. You will need to trim the extra paper from the ends for a seal-able fit.

We Hope You Enjoy!

A truly versatile recipe, whether you make this easy old-fashioned rhubarb jam for yourself or someone special, serve it spread on fresh muffins, or as a fun on-the-go fruit leather snack, possibilities abound! If you are a rhubarb fan, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed, if not, you might just make the acquaintance of a fantastic new garden friend!

Exploring the tastes of the late spring harvest, the Homesteading Hen

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