In return for some courgettes and tomatoes, my friend Sally gave me a huge bag of plums the other day. Our own plum trees have had hardly any fruit on them since the bumper crop a few years ago and we do love plums so I was very grateful!
Knowing what to do with so many at once was a head scratcher. We were expecting visitors but they have a long list of things they don’t like. Plums are on the list (as are courgettes and tomatoes). So with a need for baking but not with plums I had to do something to preserve them for our own use later.
Cooked plums take up less room in the freezer than whole ones so I decided to roast them. We sat for a while at a shady table in the garden to halve them and remove all of the stones. This was a bit fiddly but worth the trouble; the plums were at various stages of ripeness so some of the stones were easier to remove than others.
I then simply spread them in a single layer in roasting tins, sprinkled with demerara sugar and a dusting of ground cinnamon. I baked them at 180° fan for 20 minutes by which time they were nice and soft and sticky. We had some on our breakfast cereal and some with ice cream and a mini stroopwafel The rest went into the freezer for future enjoyment.
Stroopwafels - where have they been all my life? I had never heard of them until I spotted them in a French discount store called "Action". They are delicious little wafer sandwich biscuits with a caramel filling. Utterly divine and wickedly sweet but luckily the mini version is not too detrimental to the waistline - as long you don’t eat too many! They go perfectly with ice cream, fruit salad and Sally's delicious plums!
Heavens above! You clearly don't have enough Dutch people in your life! And I clearly remember your plum's big year -- I was the delighted recipient of a bag of plums from you.
ReplyDeleteNow you mention it, I think Antoinette once gave us stroopwafels.
DeleteOur plum trees are not well. Too many heatwaves the last few years and now too straggly. They are in need of some TLC.
We have destoned and dehydrated over 2000 plums. Also 12 large packets destoned and frozen. We have 7 trees and the ground is still covered in them!!! One gets quite quick at de-stoning after bit of practice!! Enjoy, Diane
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