Poached Plums - Fresh From The Tree

With the multitude of plums that came off the tree and the fact they were a bit tart I decided to poach up a big batch. This was such a simple recipe, I highly recommend it to everyone to try with the fruit of your choice.

Ingredients:

Large amount of plums (kilo) washed and sliced

1 cup of water

½ cup of brown sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1 vanilla bean pod

Chop up all the plums and remove stones - this is the part that will take longest.

Add all the syrup ingredients to a pan and warm for 10 minutes until it becomes sticky.

Then add the plums (just enough to fill the liquid) and poach for another 5 – 8 minutes until the plums go a deep red colour and are nice and soft.

Remove with a slotted spoon into a big sealed jar (make sure this has been sterilised first).

Simply warm the syrup and add the next batch of plums and then repeat the cooking process, pop in the jar and repeat until you have finished all your plums.

The flavour of the poached plums really appeals to me as they are sweet but also tangy at the same time, so there isn’t that uber sweetness that you get from stewed fruit.

The vanilla and cinnamon shine through and they taste is very reminiscent of mulled wine (probably why I like it so much!).

What to do with your poached plums?

I used the poached plums to make mini plum crumbles which were utterly delicious, Mr L’Orange doesn’t do dessert so I have now eaten the 4 remaining crumbles all by myself – the highlight of my day!

I’m planning to use some of poached plums to go on top of muesli for breakfast, they would also be delicious with pancakes if you were making a batch.

Dessert wise they are great with vanilla ice cream or just served as a side dish with any other dessert you are making/serving.

I’m feeling quite proud of myself on this one, as I haven’t done much in the way of preserving and this has been one of the easiest recipes I’ve tried, plus it tastes amazing.