Well, we did it. Our first batch of Beach Plum Jelly. Each morning, during our vacation on Cape Cod, I would walk to the beach. On my way there and back, I would pass beach plum bushes. Initially, most of the plums weren't ripe. Slowly, they ripened and I started picking a few, first for me to eat during my walks, then to share with my wife and daughter. Towards the end of our trip, the many beach plums ripened. I started carrying bags to store the plums in, and ended up gathering about a gallon and a half of beach plums.

Back home, we followed Sean Sullivan's BEACH PLUM JELLY: ORIGINAL GOURMET RECIPE. We put the gallon and a half of beach plums in a crock-pot and let them heat through for the day. In the evening, I strained the juice, ending up with about five cups. If I had been more diligent, I might have been able to get a sixth or even seventh cup out, but instead, I plan on saving the pulp for some further cooking experiments.

We added eight cups of sugar and brought it to a full boil. We then added a little more than a box of pectin, let it work back up to a build again for a little over a minute, and then let it cool. I skimmed off the foam; there wasn't much to skim, and then started putting it into half pint jars. We only had eight half pint jars, and we filled up all of them, and still had jelly left over, so we filled up a different jar which we will use immediately.

The jelly appears to have set nicely and the canning jars appear to have sealed, after flipping them over while they cooled.

We took a little of the remaining pulp, mixed it with vodka, sugar syrup and a little tonic water and had a great cocktail. I'm thinking of adding the rest of the remaining pulp into my first or second batch of hard cider this season. Beach Plum Hard Cider, sounds like it could be a great concoction.

So, that's our first experiment with beach plums.