This oven roasted spiced plum butter is a delicious way to preserve early autumn plums. Also known as pflaumenmus, it’s a traditional German preserve that is very much worth making.
I first discovered The Wednesday Chef sometime in early 2006. I had become an avid reader of blogs about a year before (they were a great way to keep my mind off my terrible day job) and was always on the hunt for new sites to add to my list of bookmarks. Luisa’s voice and perspective on food resonated with me immediately. I spent a morning engrossed in her archives and once caught up, tried never to miss a new post.
In fact, it’s fairly safe to say that I’ve read nearly everything that Luisa Weiss has ever posted to the internet (I hope that doesn’t make me sound like a stalker. I swear, I’m just a fan). And, when an advanced copy of My Berlin Kitchen arrived just before the mini-vacation that Scott and I took few weeks back, I tucked it into my travel bag and proceeded to read it in a single, giant gulp.
As I read, I dog-eared recipes I wanted to remember. I marked the Pizza Siciliana and the Poppy Seed Whirligig Buns. I’m hoping to make the Yeasted Plum Cake before their season is entirely gone and, come Christmas, I’m definitely planning on making the Fruit Bread on page 161. It sounds dense and divine.
As I read, there was one recipe that jumped out at me more insistently than the rest and cried out to be made immediately. The Pflaumenmus or Spiced Plum Butter on page 237 had my name written all over it (particularly since I had the necessary four pounds of Italian prune plums at home, thanks to the Washington State Fruit Commission and their Canbassador program).
Of course, I’ve made plum butters before, but never with this particular technique. Luisa has you quarter the plums, stir them together with a bit of sugar, a cinnamon stick, and a couple cloves and let them sit overnight. The next day, once they’re nice and juicy, you pop the pan into the oven and bake them them at moderate heat.
After their time in the heat, the plums are incredibly tender and fragrant. The liquid has thickened a great deal and the slumping fruit just smells incredible.
Once pureed, she has you funnel the prepared butter into sterilized jars and use the inversion method to seal. This is the only place where I diverged from the recipe as written and I chose to run my jars through a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Because this is a relatively low sugar preserve, I wanted to ensure that all bacteria was killed and the best way to do that is with a hot water bath.
Now, just a note about the yield. The recipe says that it makes four to five jars, but doesn’t specify the sizes of those jars. I found that after pureeing, I had exactly enough butter to fill three pint jars. I imagine the jars Luisa used were a bit smaller than a standard pint and so figure my yield was just about right (I did the math and found that had I used the 1/5 L Weck jars, I’d have filled exactly five jars).
I plan on applying this same overnight maceration and oven roasting to other fruits, because it made for such a nice finished product and filled my apartment with the most delicious smells.
Disclosure: Viking sent me an advanced copy of My Berlin Kitchen and are providing the copy for this giveaway. However, I’ve not been paid to host this giveaway and my opinions are entirely my own.
Spiced Plum Butter
Ingredients
- 4 pounds Italian prune plums
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 whole cloves
Instructions
- Pit and quarter the plums and put them in a heavy 4-quart pot. Add the sugar, the cinnamon stick, and the cloves. Stir well and let sit overnight or four 8 hours.
- The next day, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the pot, unlidded, into the oven and cook for 2 hours, stirring the mixture occasionally.
- Sterilize the glass jar and lids in boiling water.
- When the plums have broken down and the liquid has reduced to a thick jam, remove pot from the oven and fish out the cinnamon stick (if you can find the cloves, fish them out too).
- Puree the jam with an immersion blender until it resembles a fruit butter, and then fill the sterilized jars with the hot puree, screw on tops and immediately turn the jars upside down. If you prefer a jam with discernible chunks of fruit, however, don’t puree the jam; simply ladle the hot jam into the sterilized jars.
- Let the jars cool complete before turning the right side up again and labeling them. The jam will keep for at least a year.
(Marisa’s note: You can also process the jars in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes if you’d prefer to do it the American way.)
Recipe from My Berlin Kitchen: A Love Story (with Recipes) by Luisa Weiss, published by Viking, 2012.
My favorite food memory is from one summer during college when I was living at home. My mom bought me my first cookbook and she spent the summer teaching me the basics of cooking!
One of my favorite food memories is kind of recent–My parents came up to visit a few years ago on Labor Day weekend and we went apple- and peach-picking. Then my mom showed me how to make peach preserves with our freshly picked fruit. I cherish that time.
I loved going to my grandma’s house, alone without my siblings then I could have her attention all to myself and she would cook for me. I LOVED her potatoes, sunshine pancakes and tuna patties. I can still hear the news on in the back ground, she had to watch the news and her brightly colored yellow walls. It all comes back when I make any of those foods. I love how nostalgic food can be, it’s really a blessing.
My favorite food memory is just something simple. When I was little and I would spend the night at my grandparent’s house I would wake up early with my grandpa. He would always make me toast spread with butter and Amish Blackberry Jam. Then he would cut the toast ont he diagonal and call them “Blackbird Wings.” My grandpa has many wonderful dishes and is by far the best cook that I know but this simple thing was our morning ritual and I’ll always remember it 🙂
One of my favorite food memories was my dad teaching me how to cook sooji ka halwa and other recipes that his had mom taught him. While standing over the stove and stirring, he’d tell me all about his early adulthood and his adventures with learning to cook for himself.
It’s so hard to pick a favorite food memory! I am currently vacationing at my very-small-town childhood home. I grew up around all these amazing cooks that grew (and canned) their own produce, raised and butchered their own meat, and milked their own cows. I moved 600 miles away to go to college and ended up settling down there. When my hubby and I bought our first house 4 years ago, the kitchen sink of all things reminded me of my mother’s (my house was built around the same time as my parents’ house). It was amazing how something as simple as an enameled cast iron kitchen sink could bring a flood of food memories – recipes that I had not even thought about in years. Recipes that I had once looked down my nose at because they were not “authentic” (like my mom’s version of enchiladas) or recipes I had simply forgotten about in my quest to broaden my culinary horizons. Of course, I have since made some of those dishes for my husband… and we have thoroughly enjoyed them!
When my mother was alive she made the best chili in her Revere Ware Dutch oven. She gave me her Dutch oven before she passed. Now I make her famous chili which is a hit with my kids and always think of her when I cook something in that pot.
Looks wonderful!
My best food memory is eating at Hosteria Giusti in Modena – where the owner took pity on this lone traveler – took flowers off the side table since all others were full and served me the most spectacular meal. I had never tasted some of those lovely regional dishes – unbelievable.
Toss up: Baking Christmas goodies every year, or the Sunday night meals of popcorn and cut up apples…both are amazing 🙂
Cherry coffee cake at Christmas. My Mom made it and I do too.
Best food memory ever was about a food so simple, yet so comforting…. While vacationing in Florence, Italy we happened upon a little hole in the wall restaurant. The smell of garlic just absolutely filled the street! They had this amazing focaccia that had the best flavor of garlic in it and the perfect light sprinkling of coarse salt on the top. I could eat this till near explosion it was so tasty! To this day, nothing quite compares to this simple bread…. oh man, now i totally hav a craving for it!
One of my favorites comes from my childhood: on the occasional evenings that my dad would have to work late, mom and I would ‘have breakfast for dinner,’ which usually meant waffles and eggs. Such a breaking of the traditional rules of meal order made it feel more than a little special.
My mom and I used to make no-bake cookies (the chocolate, peanut butter, rolled oats kind). These were the first cookie I learned to make, and I remember staring at the wax paper, poking them until they set, and always eating one a little too early, when it was still warm and soft and gooey.
I love food too much to only have one memory! But my favorite one is Christmas dinner, and it happens every year 🙂 Being from Canada, I have my very specific food I need every year and thankfully, my family here in the US loves it all. We all look forward to Christmas to gather around the dinner tavble and eat this great meal: meat pie, ragout (meatball in a brown gravy), turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans (just so it’s a little healthier!), followed by sugar pie and cream fudge. And that… is only for the 4 of us!
I remember learning how to make cabbage roles with my Mom. My Dad calls it Hungarian penicillin.
I’m on my way to the market to see if I can find some plums. The picture really made me hungry.
I think I was reminded of my favorite food memories yesterday. We had a holiday dinner, and while the menu may change yearly, the idea is the same. Good food, great company, and good times for all 🙂
My favorite food memory is of my husbands paternal Grandmother teaching me how to make jellies and preserves. Now as a grandmother myself, whenever I’m canning, I think about how fortunate I was as a young bride to have such a loving teacher.
Leave a comment on this post and share your favorite food memory>>
Favorite food memory is probably very recent. My family is eating healthier and we’re having a good time exploring new foods together.
Ice cream has always been my favorite indulgence. When I was young I fell off my bike at my grandparents house and flipped over, head first, onto a brick. Fear and pain combined, it ruined my day. Until my grandpa showed up with six pints of Baskin Robbins ice cream. He told me I could have some of every flavor. Somehow the pain just disappeared after that 🙂
My favorite food memory used to involve my own childhood memories of cooking with my parents, but has lately evolved to involve me and my own girls- I absolutely LOVE having their help in the kitchen! One of the best is our ritual Friday night pizza- rolling the dough and slopping on the sauce and catching them nibbling on the cheese in the process of sprinkling it on… no pizza anywhere in New York can top it!
Getting the box of Christmas food from my grandmother, you never knew what kind of sweets might be packed in it that year–the constants were peanut brittle and fudge though.
My favorite food memory is watching and learning from my dad as he tasted and tweaked recipes on Sundays. He would make 4 or 5 batches of something until he got the exact taste he wanted and it was so cool to explore the realm of recipe testing with him as a kid.
My favorite food memory is going to my Memere’s house and her making Chicken and Dumplings for us. I miss the winter lunches but I’m proud to say she passed the recipe to me and I now make it for my children and hope to one day be able to make it for my grandchildren.
My favorite food memory is holidays at my great-grandmother’s house, where she would make yeast rolls and set out her canned dill pickles. The dill pickles were HUGE (at least to me as a kid) and were so dilly and delicious! I’ve never tasted a pickle as good as hers though…
My favorite food memories are making Christmas cookies with my grandmother, mother and sister.
making pumpkin pies with my grandmother 🙂
My favorite food memory was being about 8, and my sister and I helped my mother to can peaches (half peaches in light syrup). We thought it was such a good joke – for one can we put a pit into each peach half. It was about February when my mother got to that jar, and boy was she mad! I think she was worried about chemical leaching from the pits (there is a tiny bit of cyanide in the nuts inside the pits, so I guess she had reason to be concerned). That is not only a great memory, but it was my introduction to canning – and now, about 40 years later – I’m trying to teach this art to my kids.
We all lived just outside Berlin for 6 months – I’d really love to win that book!
I love making holiday cookies with my mom. We spend most of the day making way too many kinds of cookies, but we have so much fun!
Sitting on a cliff on the shore in Maine, eating lobster cooked in salt water and swimming in butter!
So many memories…..my Mom making blintzes, her own recipe that she made up….mmmmm so, so good.
Making Christmas cookies with my Mom & sisters.
hard to know my fav food memory — but I sure do remember my mom making brown-sugar toast and caramel popcorn for me a lot as a kid. the book looks great!
One of my favorite food memories is going to my grandma’s house and having her make bread pudding, with a lemon sauce. It was her speciality, and it was delish!
My mom making us macaroni & cottage cheese (delicious) when my dad was at his golf league since he hated it 🙂
My favorite food memory is clam chowder every Christmas Eve. Same recipe, every year. I can’t eat it without looking for someone to start handing me gifts afterwards.
Favorite food memory is baking Christmas cookies with my mom, sisters, and cousin every year. We make it a weekend event, usually in October. People gather on Friday with new recipes they want to try, cookie cutters, cooling racks, snacks, and adult beverages. We mix up doughs that need to chill so they are ready for us Saturday morning. We mix and bake, eat, drink, and laugh, then pack up most of the goodies and put them in the freezer until December. It is done and relieves some of the stress at holiday time and is a great time we look forward to each year.
I am so intrigued by both this method for fruit butter and the book. As to a favorite food memory, what came first to mind was staying at a cabin down the road from my Grandad’s house in Mendocino, and the traditional spaghetti dinner my mom would make. Thanks for the giveaway!
My favorite food memory would be when my mom and grandma came to visit me (after hubby and I moved from Germany to the US) for the first time and we baked “Schneeballen” together. It’s pretty labor intensive, but we had so much fun baking together.
This recipe sounds fabulous – wish I still had that Italian plum tree in my father in law’s yard from the 1970’s!
Just finished reading your book, Marisa, and loved it! I dog-eared quite a few pages and plan on filling my pantry with your delicious recipes.
I would rather read a cookbook than a romantic novel (Bodice Ripper, we call them, lol) any day!
My favorite food memory (that’s also a canning memory) is making jams with my grandma in the summers. We would make pints and pints of wild grape. Sometimes we would harvest her garden and can pickles or squash. I still remember her standing in front of her stove stirring a pot bigger than me and her yelling, “MOVE!MOVE!MOVE!” when it was time to take them out and I was a little slow on the uptake getting my bottom out of the way.
I fondly remember coming home after school to my grandmother’s fried peach pies. I remember eating three of them once. They were so good, I remember the taste still.
One of my favorite food memories is the time my husband and I went to Florence Italy and we didn’t know where to go to eat, so we asked the hotel recep. where to go. She mention this little off the wall place that was about about a 10 min walk from where we were at. So my husband and I went off and walked and walked ( it was more like 30 mins ) and finally found this place ( wish I could remember the name ). No one spoke very good English, so we told the owner our food choices would be in his hands and we would eat whatever he gave us. So, with that said we ended up eating a 6 course meal with the most amazing food we have ever eaten. He made everything himself, serve us himself, catered to us like we where the king and queen of England. It truly was an amazing and something I will cherish forever.
One of my favorite food memories… Mom’s venison stroghanoff with onions & morel mushrooms from our property. It’s the only time I will happily eat mushrooms! Us kids asked for that for Thanksgiving instead of turkey.
This book looks amazing! One of my favorite food memories is of my husband and I churning out about 100 4oz jars of strawberry jam for our wedding. My apartment kitchen was TINY and it was a hot, hot day in mid June. I only had one little fan so he drove over and hour to his apartment to bring up his window fan which offered us a little relief.
I remember making cream
Corn with my dad in the summers…sitting outside in the summer, scraping the cobs. Those bags of creamed corn were like gold, so much work and so delicious.
One of my favorite food memories is dining at a very nice Italian restaurant with my husband and two children. The food was absolutely divine!
Learning to roll meatballs from my mother. Every time I make meatballs & gravy, it brings me back….
When I was little, we lived around the corner from a bagel shop, and I remember that I always ordered a plain bagel with butter. They were always the most amazing bagels – there was something about that butter!