Jujube Date Jam is made with dried jujube dates, which have a rich, caramel like flavor. As a kid, I fondly remember knocking down the ripe, speckled dates off the jujube date tree my dad planted in our front yard. We had a really long stick reserved just for this purpose. Fresh jujube dates are crunchy and sweet, sort of like apples but with a finer texture. Dried, ripe jujube dates are dark red and called red dates in Chinese (hong zao). My dad used to sun dry all the jujube dates at the end of the season.
The last several years for Chinese New Year, I’ve been making a new sticky rice cake from my mom’s recipe collection and my Auntie Florence’s cookbooks. This year, I spotted a recipe for Jujube Date Sticky Rice Cake in Auntie Florence’s cookbook, which intrigued me. Her recipe for this traditional Chinese New Year calls for jujube date puree or jam. I’ve never heard of this ingredient and couldn’t find it on the internet anywhere for purchase. So, decided to try to make it myself.
Auntie Florence‘s recipes are very traditional and true to authentic Chinese cuisine, so I believe traditional Chinese New Year sticky rice cake used to be made with jujube dates. These days, however, most brown Chinese sticky rice cake you can buy, and most recipes I’ve seen use brown sugar. I’ve never seen sticky rice cake made with jujube dates. Dried jujube dates have caramel notes, and a roasted scent, similar to roasted chestnuts, providing a depth of flavor and fragrance that brown sugar cannot replace.
You can buy dried jujube dates at Chinese grocery stores, Korean grocery stores and on the internet. I soaked the jujube dates overnight.
Then, I cooked them with some sugar and water in an Instant Pot for 7 minutes. You could also cook the dates in a stove-top pressure cooker or a regular pot (it will require more water and time). The dates softened up and absorbed much of the water. Once the dates have cooled, remove the pits and place in a food processor to puree.
The puree needs to be strained to remove as much date skin as possible. My jujube date jam still had some bits of date skin, but it didn’t bother me. If you don’t want any skin at all in your end product, use a finer strainer.
The process of straining is a bit time consuming, but if you want to make authentic Jujube Date Sticky Rice Cake, then give this a try. I’ll be positing the recipe for Jujube Date Sticky Rice Cake soon so stay tuned!
Jujube Date Jam
Ingredients
- 6 ounces dried jujube dates
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 cup water
Instructions
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Cover jujube dates with water and soak overnight. Cover with wet cloth to keep dates submerged in the water.
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Place rehydrated dates in Instant Pot or pressure cooker. Add sugar and 1 cup water. Cook at high pressure for 7 minutes. Natural release 10 minutes then quick release pressure. Let dates cool.
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Remove pits from dates. Place in a food processor with any remaining liquid. Process until smooth. Strain pulp. This should yield about 11 ounces of jujube date puree/jam.
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I eat black jujube almost daily .-) Love them..not so sweet like those western dried dates and taste really great. Save this to try next time when I have enough stock :-))
I’ve never had black jujube – I bet they are delicious!
I wonder if you could use boiling water to hydrate the dates and shorten the time, instead of overnight soaking?
I think boiling water should shorten the soaking time. Alternatively you could probably pressure cook for longer with more water. I’m guessing it’s similar to how you cook dried beans
Could you make this jam with fresh Chinese dates?
I don’t think fresh dates will work – the consistency is very different from the dried dates (even after reconstituting).
Hi I’m from Sweden and here you can find two types of dried jujube (hong zao) – either hard or a little softer. Were the ones you used in this recipe still soft before you soaked them?
Can’t wait to try this out. Cheers!
Hi Sara – the hong zao I used were not completely dried out. Whether you use the hard or soft one, they should be very soft after cooking.
Hi Jeanette – I made Jujube and Yellow Plum Jam today. Tastes delicious. I used your recipe as a guide, many thanks!
I chopped then soaked 540 grams of jujubes(approx 1000g of fresh fruit)in 3 cups of water overnight,added 500 g of yellow plums, chopped, and one lime,quartered, then cooked the fruit in a pressure cooker.
Added 50 grams of pectin and 1300g of sugar, boiled it, then simmered until it gelled on a cold saucer.
The yield was 2895 grams of jam, that filled 9 sterilised jars of 300 gram capacity.
Hope this helps anyone who wants to experiment with jam recipes.
Hi Beth – your variation sounds delicious! I’ve never seen yellow plum. Thanks so much for sharing your take on this recipe!
I wonder why fresh jujubes won’t work to make jam? I have jujube trees and drying the fruit only to rehydrate it seems like 2 unneeded steps. No other fruit requires this to make jam. Any thoughts?
From what I remember from my childhood, fresh jujube dates are crunchy like apples. Dried jujube dates have a toasty flavor to them and have the consistency of soft prunes when rehydrated. I’m not sure the flavor will be the same if you use fresh. Let me now if you try it.
Once they shrivel, I think you could use them at that point without drying them further and then rehydrating them. The stores dry them more for preservation.
I was recently given a large quantity of fresh jujube fruit – which I had never tasted or known of before. They are still firm and crunchy. I would love to make jam from this fruit. Will these shrivel naturally and how do you suggest I store them while in the shrivel-mode? Perhaps on a screen in a single layer? Any suggestion is appreciated as I don’t have a dehydrated and if possible to use these in a shriveled state instead, would be great! Thanks for any guidance and suggestion. : )
My dad used to just let them dry out in the sun on a baking tray. Once they are fully dried, you can just store them in a Ziploc bag
I have three trees loaded with blooms an looking forward to a lot of fruit is jam the only type of jelly to be made from these or can I make jelly or Jelly preserves out of these
Sorry, I have never made jelly out of jujube dates. For the jam, you need to dry them out first.
Thank you for your posts. I have a jujube tree in my back yard that was planted by the previous owner. I’ve ne er known what can be done with the fruit except to eat them fresh. I look forward to trying out your recipies. I’m also wanting to try Auntie Florence’s Jujube sticky rice cake. It sounds delicious!!
We had a jujube tree when I was growing up and ate them fresh too! My Dad would dry the rest by leaving them out in the hot sun.