Mora Syrup

At least once a week Gonzolo, my veggie guy, has several selections of fruit besides oranges, melons and pineapples. He will have strawberries (frutilla), red grapes (uva), blackberries (mora) as well as the fruits for juice like tree tomato (tomato de arbor), passion fruit (maracuya) and naranjilla (not sure of the English name).

This past week he had mora berries so I bought several cartons and decided to make jam…

…well it actually turned out as Mora Syrup…First I just hate using a great deal of sugar in my recipes so normally for making jam you would use one cup sugar to one cup juice/pulp…I just think that is way too much so I use half the amount of sugar. Four cups of juice/pulp and two cups sugar…it has a nice tart flavor with just enough sweetness. But after bringing it to a boil (also, a little trick I learned  – add a dab of butter and it will not foam) lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes. When I looked at it after it had cooled a bit it was a too runny for jam (Joe does not think so but I think it would flow off the bread) so it became Mora Syrup…and I am sticking to that story.

I made pancakes yesterday morning and we used the new syrup – excellent, fresh, no preservatives just fruit and sugar. And very easy to make. I will say that straining the seeds from the fruit is time-consuming but I did see a food mill while shopping in Guayaquil and that would make the job so much faster…so that is added to my wish list from the states…