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1:21 pm
Mon 15-Aug-11
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I made some plum chutney but doubled-up the quantities as I had loads of plums. It took ages to cook down, not the 35 minutes stated in the recipe. It is still too runny. Should I be increasing the proportion of vinegar to the amount of plums or keep to the amount in the original recipe.
4:28 pm
when you double up a recipe the cooking time often doubles or even trebles!
The best bet is to stay with the original ratios doubled and just cook for as long as it takes to get a suitable consistency
8:39 pm
Supreme Being
Mon 21-Sep-09
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Or cook it in two batches. It is amazing how things like that just don't seem to work when you go for more, sometimes it does save time and energy and sometimes it doesn't 
.
Welcome Greenpage by the way, hope you take a peek around the site as there are loads of tips to keep you busy and we have even be better at keeping on topic these days - well sometimes
10:19 pm
Mon 15-Aug-11
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Thank you for the welcome. Yes cooking in 2 batches might be the solution and I have been thinking about buying another preserving pan. There must be a trick for scaling up recipes though, I usually want to make more than a couple of jars.
11:00 pm
Supreme Being
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Tue 22-Sep-09
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Hi there greengage
I often cook chutneys and jams in larger quantities - enough to make 8 or 9 jars at a time, I hve a large preserving pan, which is great but have to cope with an electric cooker, this means at times I just can't seem to get things to boil vigorously enough and often end up doing the fast boil needed for the final stages of jams in batches. Chutneys don't seem to be too big a problem, but i agree with everyone else, better generally to stick with the recipe quantities
4:13 pm
Improver
New members
Wed 24-Nov-10
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It's to do with the surface area of the pan to how full it is. If you are going to double the quantities without doubling the cooking time then you need a pan with double the surface area for it to evaporate at the same speed.
I often find that if I double up I only end up burning things to the bottom of the pan because it's too deep...
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