Plum emergency!

[MattW]

Dear All,
We've just had something of a disaster with our Victoria plum tree which has lost a main branch (with hindsight we should have thinned the plums out much more than we did, ah well...)

As a result we are left with five carrier bags full of plums ranging from ripe and ready to eat, to small bullets (most being semi-ripe).

Anone any ideas / recipes for lots of plums?

thanks
Matt

 

[Mantic]

How about a rumtopf? Depending on the size of the rumtopf itself, that'll get rid of a few.

 

[Ed]

Plum wine

4lb plums
1/4 oz root ginger
4 cloves
1 sliced lemon
1 gallon of water
3lb sugar
yeast

1. Cut up the plums and remove stones
2. Bruise the ginger and add to the plums
3. add cloves and lemons (sliced)
4. Pour boiling water over the mix and stir
5. Leave for 3 days stiring twice a day with a wooden spoon*
6. Strain through muslin to remove the solids onto the sugar
7. Heat to luke warm to disolve the sugar andadd the yeast (activate the yeast before hand)
8. Put all into your fermentation jar and insert an air lock
9. Leave to ferment until finished in a warm place
10. Syphon off into bottles and cork

*make sure it is a wooden spoon as metal can react with the acids (from the lemon juice) and give your wine a metalic taste.

Ed

 

[MattW]

Thanks for the ideas everyone!

Plum jam is going to be the first project - I've just spent 2 hours stoning 15lb's of the fruit - trouble is it's only about a quarter of the total

Matt

 

[crazydave]

the japanese make umiboshi which is pickled plums and you serve them on a bed of plain white rice.

you can stew some and freeze it for later use like wine, jam or crumble its easier to stone them as well.

 

[Mat]

How abut 'Country Bounce'?

2kg plums
1 litre rum
350g demerara sugar for every 500 ml juice

Put the plums (inc stones) in a large bowl and pound with the end of a rolling pin. Add the rum, cover and let stand for 1 week at room temperature. Transfer the fruit pulp to a jelly bag, set over a bowl and let it drain overnight. Measure the quantity of juice and add 350g sugar for every 500 ml juice. Mix well and transfer to bottles. Store for about 12 months, filter, decant and consume!

Not tried it my self but am about to after seeing the recipe in a book (ISBN 1-84172-714-8). It doesn't say what type of rum to use so I am going to use a drop of good old Mount Gay. The recipe also says you can use damsoms, plums, currants, sloes, bilberries, blackberries or elder berries!