Say the word jam, and I usually take a moment’s pause. Jam means fruit, and summer, and hot buttered sourdough toast. But more than anything, I usually associate jam with time, because making it – between the chopping and stirring and mothering and jarring – requires a luxury of hours that doesn’t pass by my calendar all that often.
This jam, though. It’s a caramelized rhubarb jam. It’s roasted, not simmered, and it’s really too quick to require a true recipe. Mix four pounds of chopped rhubarb with a cup of sugar, the juice of a lemon, and a split vanilla bean, and roast it at 350 degrees for two hours or so, stirring just once. The stalks will collapse as the sugar caramelizes, creating a rich panful of brick-colored jam – a good-sized jar for home and two jars for sharing – that’s as at home on a slice of toast as it is snuggled next to a smear of peanut butter.
Of course, if you eat it with a spoon, I won’t tell. I’ll just ask for another spoon.
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Oh my. I know what I’m doing tonight!!!
Thanks so much for sharing…it sounds delicious and easy!! yum yumm
This looks/sounds awesome! Can’t wait to try it!
Do you think I get away with cutting the recipe in half? Organic rhubarb is tres cher in my neck of the woods, but this is really worth trying.
Did you do this on a pan or in a pot?
And now adding buy rhubarb to my list of things to do today.
Caramelized rhubarb jam!! I knew I liked you.
I have rhubarb growing in my backyard and I’m always looking for stuff to do with it, if I can get past the brambles that are caging it from me. So yummy! Is this recipe good for canning or more of a keep-in-the-fridge-and-eat-in-a-week kind of jam?
hmmmm I love rhubarb. I make a rhubarb relish but havent made jam out of it. My kids would love it.
Great idea, sounds delicious. Rhubarb in Hawaii, does it exist here? Mostly I wanted to say Graham is so beautiful..xx
@Emma, yes, you should be able to cut this in half – only do it in a smaller pan, like a 9 x 13-incher.
@Frank, do it in a big roasting pan
@Geraldine, You k now, I did it as a spoon-out-of-the-fridge sort of jam, but I bet it would can very well. You might want to make more, though, because the amount this “recipe” makes doesn’t last long…
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Gosh, this sounds so wonderful – I need to go hunting for rhubarb! Such a nice change from “dump cake”:)
Im going to try it sounds good, I just made rhurbarb syrup its good also
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