The pawpaw that I planted at the end of 2021 have been constant producers. Pawpaw or papaya used to be a fruit that I really didn't enjoy that much. There is a strong kinda funky flavor that a lot of the papaya I taste has. When I started growing my own organic papaya though the taste has been very smooth and sweet but not over powering.
Since I have a bounty of continue papaya I have been trying to figure out what the best use for it is. My wife loves to eat it while still green and very crunchy but it was not advisable while she was pregnant because of the latex in the raw un-rip fruit.
It turns out papaya is great for making jam out of because it has a higher content of natural pectin than a lot of other fruits. So all you have to do is use sugar and no added pectin is necessary.
Her is a dwarf variety that I planted in May of this year and it is already producing at about 3 feet tall. I have about another half dozen of these coming up throughout my garden. Papaya also produces all throughout the year and season. One thing that I have found interesting is that they really have not been ripening on the tree. This might be because they were still getting enough moisture from the ground but now that we are in the dry season I will get a better idea of what they will do I was not getting a lot of large mature and ripe fruit this time.
I then tried to pick the best and ripest ones and skin them.
I then used a spoon to scoop out all the seeds. I also squeezed some lemons to get a bit of juice that I will also use in the recipe.
I then put it on medium heat in a pan and added a cup of sugar and the lemon juice and stirred well.
At the same time I sterilized some jam jars for the final product.
Eventually the fruit started to get a bit soft. I tried to mash as much of it in the pan as possible but eventually transferred it to the blender. It might be easier to use an immersion blender if I had one but I don't.
You can add a bit more sugar and cook until it looks like things have set.
This is where I think I made a mistake. First I don't think I used enough sugar at first and second I think some of my fruit was still kinda hard an not ripe. This meant that there was a lot more pectin in the mix than what was needed. My jam was very thick as a result. I still went ahead and jarred it and got 2 jars out of my work.
After putting it in the jar I turned them upside down and left the on the counter to cool all day long. The seal was good and intact and the pop top on the jar was fully sucked in.
This morning I quite literally enjoyed the fruits of my labor with breakfast.
