We keep getting plums in our produce baskets and not eating them. (A perfectly ripe black plum is a thing of beauty, but if it's even slightly under- or over-ripe it's nothing but sadness and disappointment. I find plums tend to disappoint me more often than not, so I don't eat them that often.) This has resulted in nearly half a kilo of prune plums languishing in our fruit bowl. Given that we weren't eating them, I decided that this would be a good time to make a plum betty. But this, of course, requires stewed fruit.

I figured stewing plums would just be a simple matter of cooking them with some sugar and maybe a bit of water or lemon juice, but I decided to consult a couple recipes anyway. I found a basic recipe on the BBC Good Food website and followed their general procedure, but scaled the sugar and water way back; 200g of sugar for 500g of fruit sounded like way too much to me. And I figured that if I was putting less sugar, I should probably reduce the amount of water as well since the recipe appears to start by making a simple syrup. I probably should've cut the water back a bit more, but the half cup I used seems to have worked out alright. If you want less saucy fruit though, it's probably not a bad idea to dial the water back to 90-100mL.

Stewed Plums

Adapted from BBC Good Food

Ingredients

• 1/2 c. (~100g) vanilla sugar + an empty pod from the sugar jar
• 1/2 c. water
• 1 (3") cinnamon stick
• 500g plums, pitted and quartered

Directions

1. Combine sugar, water, vanilla pod, and cinnamon stick in a small pot and heat, stirring, until sugar is completely dissolved.
2. Add plums and bring to a boil.
3. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-8 minutes until fruit has reached desired tenderness.
4. Allow to cool slightly and served topped with vanilla ice cream or use as the base for a fruit crumble or betty.