Homemade Plum Jam

Did I mention having a lot of plums from my uncle's garden? Well, when we still had to finish the container of plums that was sitting in the fridge, a relative brought yet another bucket of them. So together with my mom, we decided to make jam out of them in order to keep wastage to a minimum.

My mom was the one who started the process, so I can't tell you just how much sugar she put. Most sites seem to recommend putting 1:1 ration of fruits to sugar in weight. I think that may be excessive, and depends on how ripe the fruits are.

I had cut about half the plums in half to remove the pit, but my mom threw the rest into the pot whole, which I don't recommend (unless the pits are very very hard to remove). As we cooked, I had to find and remove every pit that came loose from the flesh, which was not a fun job, especially since they stopped floating once the jam began thickening.

Near the beginning, once the juice started boiling, I threw in a small amount of butter, which makes the jam richer, and also prevents foaming. The rest of the process is just simmering the fruits until thickened and set.

I then sterilized the jars in boiling water, lids included (they were old jam jars from some jams we had bought at the supermarket, hence the "fraise (strawberry)" label on the right jar). Putting the jam in hot, then closing it to ensure that no bacteria sneaked their way in. Once the jars cooled, I stuck on my homemade labels, which say "Plum Jam, August 3, 2014."

Plum Pockets

After having used about half of our stash of plums from my uncle's garden, I had some more to use up. I found some old pastry dough squares laying about in the freezer, so I thawed them and made some pockets.

I brushed the dough with melted butter, filled it with cut and sweetened plums, and stuck the whole thing in the oven.

Unfortunately, the plums leaked A LOT of juice, and I had soggy bottoms... But they were still yummy enough nevertheless~

Vegan Plum Tart

My mom wanted to have a get-together with some people. At first, she asked me to make some pasta, but then, since she was going to make another main dish to bring along, she said I could make dessert. My dad chipped in that we had a box full of organic plums from my uncle's garden that was sitting in the fridge. So plum tart it was.

This being my first time making tart with fruit other than apple, I did a quick Google search. It would seem that plums are often paired with an almond paste thing, which I was not ready to deal with. So I decided to incorporate a couple of ideas from a few sites, and some of my own ideas into this tart.

---

First, I gathered ingredients. Due to time constraints, I used store-bought pastry dough, which contained margarine instead of the customary butter. I used the plums, and a homemade vegan custard, the recipe of which I will provide in another post in a few days.

---

To prepare the plums, I cut each in 4, and sprinkled the whole thing in sugar. I let that sit, mixing occasionally, while I pre-baked the crust and made my custard. Then, I simply drained the plum pieces using a large strainer, and keeping the liquid for later.

---

I spread a thin layer of custard on the crust, and let it cool a bit so it could set. Then I first made concentric circles of plums, skin-side down. I went back around and filled the gaps between the circles with another layer of plum pieces, this time skin-side up.

---

Baked for 30 mins at 200°C. The plums shrank a little in the oven.

After letting it cool, I nuked some of the drained plum juice with some sugar in the microwave to make a glaze, which I went and brushed on the plum pieces using a spoon. 

---

As you can probably tell, I'm playing around with my post format. If you would be so kind, please let me know in the comments what you think about it~