Keeping the poached fruit train rolling! And this plum recipe was next up. TF and I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as the pears or the quince, but it was still good. And I'm enjoying getting to try all of these different poached fruit desserts.

This one calls for one bottle (750mL) of red wine that has been seasoned with cloves, star anise, and ginger and sweetened with 1 c. of sugar. But, since I was still using leftover syrup from the previous poached fruit recipes, I just chose to add the relevant spices and 1 c. of red wine to the syrup I already had.

For the actual recipe below, I've written it up as given in the book. But I'll try to briefly run through what I actually did here. Just so that I have a record of it.

• Made a syrup of 2 c. water, 2 1/2 c. sugar, vanilla, and lemon zest; poached qince in it
• To the residual syrup, added 1 1/2 c. white wine, peppercorns, cinnamon, star anise; poached more quince in it
• To that residual syrup, added 1/2 c. white wine and fresh ginger; poached pears in it
• Finally, to the resulting syrup, added 1 c. red wine, cloves, and additional star anise; poached plums in it

Poached Plums with Vanilla Mascarpone

Slightly adapted from Dessert of the Day by Kim Laidlaw

Ingredients

• 750mL fruity red wine
• 17 Tbsp. sugar, divided
• 2-3 slices fresh ginger
• 3 whole cloves
• 3 whole star anise
• 2 (7cm long) cinnamon sticks
• 900g red or black plums, peeled and quartered
• 1 c. mascarpone
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Combine the wine, 1 c. of the sugar, ginger, cloves, star anise, and cinnamon sticks and bring to a boil.
2. Add plums, reduce heat slightly, and simmer until softened (8-10 minutes).
3. Meanwhile, combine the mascarpone, vanilla, and remaining 1 Tbsp. sugar.
4. Use a slotted spoon to transfer plums to bowls.
5. Serve topped with mascarpone.

I've been making a lot of crust-less sandwiches for the kidlet lately. It seemed really wastefully to just throw the crusts out, so I've been collecting them in a bag in the freezer instead. My original thought had been that I might be able to use them to make some sort of bread pudding. And then we got plums in our produce basket two weeks in a row. And no one's been that keen on eating them. So that naturally suggested that maybe I should try making a plum betty.

You can use pretty much any fruit in this betty. Edmonds suggests things like apples, plums, or apricots. I'm sure that things like berries or rhubarb would probably work very well too. I imagine that, if you wanted a quick fix, a tin of fruit pie filling would probably work reasonably well. Although I'd worry about a pre-made pie filling being overly sweet.

Plum Betty

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter¹
• 2 c. soft breadcrumbs
• 1/2 c. vanilla sugar²
• 2 c. stewed plums
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar

Directions

1. Fry the breadcrumbs in the butter until brown and crispy.
2. Remove from heat and toss with (vanilla) sugar.
3. Butter an ovenproof dish and fill with layers of stewed fruit scattered with brown sugar and breadcrumbs. Finish with breadcrumbs.
4. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 30 minutes.
5. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

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¹ Edmonds just calls for "butter" and, as far as I know, the default butter in NZ is salted, so feel free to use that if it's what you have on hand. I decided to use unsalted as I felt like that might work better with the other sweet ingredients. ^Back
2 The original recipe just calls for (granulated) sugar here. I just used vanilla sugar because I went a bit scant on the vanilla in the stewed plums, so I figured the extra vanilla notes in the breadcrumbs wouldn't go amiss. ^Back

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.