Remember these gorgeous President plums? We turned them into plum jam and plum sauce recently.
A couple of weeks ago, we took a jar of each to the markets and gave them to the grower – we thought it might be nice for him to see what we were doing with his produce. Last week, we passed by his stall again, and saw the last of the season’s plums for sale at $10/box. When we tried to buy a box, he very kindly insisted on giving us two for $10, which meant we suddenly had 12kg of ripe plums to process!
After sharing with the neighbours, we turned the remainder into…
…twenty jars of plum sauce, half with the addition of star anise. Essential as Big Boy has taken to eating this with a spoon!
. . . . .
…two litres of “Plumbeena”, using a recipe from Pam Corbin’s wonderful little book, Preserves. It’s a great way to turn any seasonal fruit into cordial:
- 2kg fruit (I used 1.6kg plums and 400g frozen boysenberries)
- water
- granulated (white) sugar
1. Put fruit in a large saucepan. I cut the plums in half, but left the pips in. Pam’s rule of thumb is to add:
- 600ml water to each 1kg hard fruit, blackcurrants or apples
- 300ml water to each 1kg stone fruit
- 100ml water to each 1kg soft berries or rhubarb
So for my 1.6kg of plums and 400g of boysenberries, I added 540ml water (yes, I know, I can’t do maths). Bring the pot to a boil and simmer until the fruit is completely soft and has released all its juices. Crush the pulp with a potato masher as it boils.
2. Pour boiling water through a clean calico cloth or fine tea towel, then use it to line a sieve and place the whole thing over a large mixing bowl. Pour the fruit and liquid in and allow it to drip through without pressing. Leave for several hours or overnight.
3. Measure the strained liquid and pour into a clean pan. For every litre of juice, add 700g sugar (or to taste). Heat the mixture gently to dissolve the sugar, then remove from the heat. Pour into warm, sterilised bottles and seal. Store in the fridge. Apparently this will keep for several months, but I’d be surprised if there’s any left by the end of the week!
Click here for a printable version of this recipe
. . . . .
…and finally, a tempting batch of plum liqueur, using this recipe.
This will now sit and brew in my hall cupboard for the next three months. I’ll let you know how it turns out in June!
Update: Here’s how the plum brandy turned out!
Wow a serious plum fest!! I love the look of all those jars, neatly labelled, like little plum soldiers. The plumbeena sounds very nice too….I can almost taste it just from reading about it and seeing that gorgeous picture. And plum liqueur? Your creativity was certainly firing on all cylinders last week! :)
It was a little manic. :)
Thanks for the recco – I think the star anise is going to work really well in the plum sauce. Will let you know in a month or so after it’s had a chance to mature.
I love plums they are so versatile. Your jars look lovely all beautifully labeled. I will definitely be hanging around to see how that liqueur is in June :-)
Will make sure I take a photo before I drink it all.. :D
Ooooh, feeling a little envy!
I love plums and would love to try your plum sauce recipe, but the blasted birds took all of mine off the tree while they were still green.
They seem to have been a little hard to get here in SA this year, so I am yet to make my very favourite plum cake.
They seem a bit late here in Sydney too this year – I remember getting them mid-Summer last year, but they’ve been much later this year! Must be nice to have your own plum tree! :)
Before Barbados, I had loads of citrus fruits and I stuffed all of them in a kilner, with sugar and a bit of cointreau…saying to myself that I was making ‘preserved citruses’, in the manner of Moroccan preserved lemons. So imagine my surprise and joy on reading that I’ll end up with a liqueur if I let it be long enough! Superb!
Oz, the recipe I used had lots of alcohol – 2 cups of vodka and 1/4 cup brandy. I’m going to be very interested to see how it turns out – and also how your super citrus cointreau turns out as well! :)
plum crazy indeed, but as the saying goes – if this is wrong, then i don’t wanna be right :)))
those really were inexpensive plums… i remember last season at the farmer’s market they went for around $1.85 per pound. we still have some 4 months to wait for them. i’m wondering what the price will be, with everything on the rise.
i love your labels, and those jars!
Dana, we’re blessed with access to big growers markets here, where the surplus that isn’t sold to the retail stores is sold off on the weekend. The going price for plums at most “farmers markets” is around $3/kg, which is still cheaper than most supermarkets. So you’re right, $10 for 12kg is pretty wild! :)
You might enjoy the photos I took last time we were at Flemington Markets…
Celia,
Amazing post. I go through plum crazy every year myself as we have two plum trees in our garden of cherry plum variety which is very sweet and very small, not much bigger than a cherry. The trees make a giant harvest every year. We have just planted a new Victoria plum tree and they are very sweet even if they only produced very little last year.
I just wonder if you really added 700 grams to sugar to that liter of plum and berries juice? It sounded so massive, I wouldn’t have added more than 150 grams to that liter of juice. I know there are the conservation matters behind the amount of sugar to be added but, right now, I prefer to freezer non sweetened concentrated juices and blend them with honey and water, milk, ioghurt and other juices whenever we want to drink them…
My plum liquor tasted so good, so good, go good that I will double the production of liquor this year. I brought two liters of a very mild cachaça to make more jars this summer. I used an Italian recipe but on the end I added the scraps and the pod of a vanilla to one of the jars to experiment and the result was amazing. Besides, the little 250ml bottles became the most amazing gift we offered our drinking friends last Christmas…
Cheers,
Cláudia
Claudia, I was inspired to try a liqueur from your blog! :)
When I posted the cordial recipe, I’ve given Pam Corbin’s original instructions – she said 700g of sugar per litre or to taste. Pete added a little less, about 600g per litre, and our plums were very tart. I think you’re right, it needs a certain amount of sugar to prevent the raw juice from spoiling, and surprisingly all that sugar didn’t mask the plum and boysenberry flavours. We only put a tiny bit in a glass to make up the cordial with water. Pete also likes it over his yoghurt. One thing we’ve found – because the plums are quite high in pectin, when you add it to soda water, you get a lovely white head – just like creaming soda!
You’ve made me very excited about the plum liqueur now – I’m going to dig the bottles out this morning and see how they’re travelling! :)
Cheers, Celia