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 has to be stuffing the turkey early on Thanksgiving morning – I was the only one who liked stuffing enough to do it, so that became my job as a kid. Oh, and my grandma Joyce’s anise bread and her krumkake. Mmmmm.
My favorite food memory is sitting with my grandmother under the pine trees behind her house and eating all the delicious, perfectly juicy nectarines we could handle.
Choosing a single favorite memory is tough, but most of my favorites revolve around my grandmother’s kitchen. Cooking was how she showed her love for us, her family. She knew each of our favorite foods and made all of them whenever she knew we were stopping by. When I was preparing to get married and move to a different state, I asked Grandma to teach me how to make some of my favorites. We spent an afternoon walking through her “recipes”, which were all written in her head and consisted of a pinch of this and a drizzle of that. I don’t think I walked away from that afternoon with a single usable recipe, but I will forever treasure the memory of I have of that time.
there are too many good food memories that i have…but one of my earliest is helping my mom make holiday pies and her letting us make “baby” pumpkin pies in old metal measuring cups with the leftover dough!
I must be hungry because as I read through everyone’s comments I come up with a similar experience, and that immediately becomes what I need to make/eat next. I’ll stick with what first came to mind, going out with the whole family after dinner for ice cream at the dairy in the next town, chocolate ice cream cone with jimmies.
I have lovely food memories helping my mom cook (especially Christmas baking!)
This one took a bit of effort to decide on my favorite food memory, but I finally found it. I absolutely adore my dad’s potato chowder. My mom is usually the cook in the house, but when the weather turns from sunny summer ‘grilling days’ into blustery fall ‘comfort food’ days, my dad would always don an apron and get to work on his chowder. Since I now live on the opposite side of the country and can’t pop in for a ‘confab and chowder day’ he shared his recipe with me. Turning his “oh a handful of this and a spoonful of that” measurement system into something close to my memories has taken a bit of time that has been worth the effort as family and friends consistently give rave reviews on it.
My favorite food memory is at my grandmother’s. I miss her meatloaf and boiled potatoes and carrots with butter. Simple food but delicious! Grandma did alot of canning too and I wish she was still here to ask for advice!
Making fresh strawberry ice cream with my mom 🙂
My favorite food memory is of making “cookie soup” with my dad. We would crush up oreos in a bowl and pour milk over them. It was so tasty!
Funny how time transforms your tastebuds. My food memory is from when my mom made beef tongue stew. I was adamant about not eating it. I remember trying very little of it then. Just a few months ago, I made it myself and loved it. It made me think of mom’s cooking. I wish I would have eaten more of it when I was a kid. Maybe it wouldn’t have taken me almost 30 years to try it again and fall in love.
My best canning memory was at my Great Aunt’s house and seeing her gorgeous red and green colored beet rings. They were breath taking colors and masterfully done. It has been my inspiration in canning to this day!
Thanks for the chance to win a copy of My Berlin Kitchen. Luisa has a great blog! 🙂
My favorite food memory is the tapioca pudding my mom made when we were kids.
It was gone in one night…ahhh, the memories.
Loved the plum butter recipe! My mom, every winter, would make a big batch of egg salad. We would have “ski days” as kids, where we would get out of school to go skiing. We loved it. The best part was eating my mom’s egg salad sandwiches in the lodge. I don’t know what it was, maybe the fact that we were always cold and tired by that time, but the egg salad sandwiches never tasted better!
My dad had this huge, octagonal stainless steel pancake griddle that had belonged to his father. One of my favorite food memories is of him making pancakes for us with it on the weekend. He even made a perfect pancake flipping spatula to go with it!
Eating ravioli at my grandma’s house
My favorite foo memory is helping my mom make Italian Cream Cake for my dad’s birthday!
These plums sound fabulous!
Homemade fried dough my dad made for breakfast when I was little. Not so healthy, but really delicious!
My favorite food memory is making and canning persimmon butter with my mother, after spending hours searching the woods for the yummy little fruits. <3
My favorite food memories were watching my son eat baby food plums. After you spooned the plums into his mouth, he would squeeze his eyes shut, scrunch up his face and pucker up his lips. As soon as he swallowed, he would open his eyes really wide and his mouth even wider for the next bite. It was the cutest thing!
Yum, this looks delicious. Would love to win this book! Favorite food memory: smearing Nutella on a baguette & calling it lunch (& later dinner) while riding trains across Western Europe. Simple food never tastes as good as when you have the most incredible views of the Swiss Alps or the Italian coast.
I’ve been wanting to get a copy of this book. Thank you for the chance to win it! My favorite food memory is when I lived in a place that had an apricot tree in the yard. There is nothing like tree ripened apricots.
Rigatoni with my Italian grandmother’s marinara sauce. This dish is a part of my favorite food memory because my grandmother was so impressed that a slender young girl of 15 could pack away a half a pound of these “macs” and still have room for dessert! She was a beautiful woman with the same cooking artistry that all of the Italian women in her family had. My portion size has decreased drastically since that memorable dinner over ten years ago but now that my own kitchen is filled with heirloom appliances and utensils, I feel the need to satisfy my loved ones with as much home cooking (and now home preserves!) as possible.
I always remember the homemade rabbit and noodle soup that my mom makes! We raised the rabbits, Dad was always the one who butchered them. He would bring them in the house and we, (Mom, Dad and the three girls) would work together to put up as many quarts of rabbit as we could! That night we would always put on a big steaming pot of rabbit soup. Mom would then pull out the flour, eggs, salt and water and whip up some of the BEST noodles ever!!! Food and fond memories always go hand in hand in my family!!!!
Best food memory: making my first pie at the age of 9 for my dad. Shoofly pie, his favorite. And I made ONE pie when the recipe called for two. It was a big, messy, delicious pie that my dad loved.
One of my favorite food memories is of watching my grandmother make lemon cupcakes when I was a kid 🙂
I’m going to make this right away! Perfect timing. It reminds me of my mom’s plum chutney, but I love the idea of baking the plums.
My favorite food memories are when my grandmother would come to stay with us during the summer. She would cook all of our favorite dishes that we only seemed to have while she was with us.
Thanks for the giveaway.
One of my favorite food memories was sitting on my Grandma’s kitchen cabinet “helping” her make cookies. She taught me most everything about cooking-which I’m eternally grateful for! 🙂
hmmm…I think I would have to say that my favorite food memory is eating Vegetable Beef Soup while I was growing up. We always ate it the same way, with a piece of buttered, store-bought bread to make sandwiches out of the beef and then dunk into the broth. I make my children eat it the same way! 🙂
One of my favorite food memories is my Grandmother’s Caramel Cake.
Found the answer:
Jam is a thick mixture of fruit, pectin, and sugar that is boiled gently but quickly until the fruit is soft and has an organic shape, yet is still thick enough that it spreads easily and can form a blob. In addition to being a spread, jams are also good for fillings.
Jelly is made from sugar, pectin, acid, and fruit juice and is a clear spread that is firm enough to hold its shape. Jellies can also be made from ingredients other than fruit, such as herbs, tea, wine, liqueurs, flowers, and vegetables.
Fruit butter is a smooth and creamy spread that is created by slow-cooking fruit and sugar until it reaches the right consistency; these types of spreads are not always translucent and are often opaque. Fruit butters are best used as a spread and a filling.
Preserves are spreads that have chunks of fruit surrounded by jelly.
Conserves are made with dried fruits and nuts and are cooked. They have a very thick and chunky texture. Conserves work very well as a spread and as a condiment for meats and cheeses.
Marmalade is a citrus spread made from the peel and pulp of the fruit. Marmalades are cooked for a long time and have no pectin, and are used as spreads and glazes.
That looks wonderfull! Does anyone know why these are called butters and not jams or preserves?
My memories involve a lot of comfort food – my grandma’s fried chicken and my mother’s ham casserole. The casserole recipe is also a favorite of my kids, in fact I just made it Monday night at the request of my 17yr old son!
Discovering the Concord grape vine in the back corner of the yard of our apartment. It reminded me of childhood and helped brighten one dark late summer for me.
My favorite food memory is all about family. I learned from Mom, my grandmothers, aunts. I learned with my sisters, brother, cousins. I remember being at my grandma’s farm, picking fresh veggies and fruits, digging up potatos, shaking the trees and harvesting pecans. But the best parts were sitting on the porch or in the big kitchen and prepping everything. Shelling nuts, popping peas, shucking corn, and even processing meat. I was a city girl who was able to get a taste of a simpler life, full of satisfying foodie-work. 🙂
What a great method for fruit butter! I do my apple butter in the crockpot and it turns out delish! Thanks for sharing this with us!
When I was little I would sit on my grandmother’s counter each fall and watch her create magic. A homemade pie crust could essentially be rolled with her eyes closed and later that day it would be make the most amazing apple dumplings that bubbled over at the core with a lava of butter and red hots (her secret) that made an warm, red, cinnamon-y glaze.
The best however was a few weeks later when she started to prepare for Christmas. I remember walking into her house and the entire living room would be covered top to bottom with cookie trays and tins waiting to cool and be frozen for the holidays. They were stacked on tables, chairs, the ironing board, on top of the hutch-it was a little girls dream to see all these haystacks, thumbprints, biscotti, buckeyes, potica, baklava, pecan nutballs, peanut butter blossoms, spritzers, chocolate candies of every flavor and so many more just knowing that soon I would have my fill. The wait until Christmas was worth it (probably because I would sneak some) and it was better than any present Santa could have brought.
Eating fresh peaches right off my grandma’s tree.
Picking raspberries in my grandparents’ backyard. Every time I pick a fresh raspberry I am reminded. Oh, and I LOVE Italian prune plums. Thanks for the giveaway!
My favourite memory of food – climbing those trees, that yield those plums, in Germany as a small child, dodging wasps and eating as much as I could. I still hanker for that.
My very first make-it-from-scratch cooking foray in one of my first apartments. I had just turned 25, my very best friend had come to visit me in New York for my birthday, and we had gone on a stroll through Chinatown buying up whatever looked interesting. I’d put the word out to people that if they showed up at some point that afternoon, they would get fed for free.
My roommate had forgotten I was doing that, and had invited some of his own friends over for a card game; but I told them that hell, there would be plenty of food so they were probably all doing us a favor by being there. My roommate then offered to do all the dishes as “my birthday present.”
We made a five-course Chinese menu from scratch — everything from mung bean thread salad to pot stickers to fried rice to beef and broccoli to red bean cakes — and other friends were drifting in over the course of the afternoon while we were cooking, until I had about 17 people in my tiny living room. We ran out of chairs and someone had to sit on the stepladder and someone else sat on an overturned bucket, and everyone had to balance plates on their laps. But everyone raved about the food, and I was especially touched to see that we all made one big circle of friends at an enormous “table” rather than have people gather in little clusters while we ate. And my roommate did make good on doing the dishes (although, because there were so many, he had to wash them in the bathtub).
Making pierogi with my grandma in Poland. Now she is teaching me here.
My favorite food memory is my grandmother’s mac and cheese. I have yet to be able to reproduce it like I remember it–and she did it without a recipe! Still working on it…..
My favorite food memory is making fudge with my grandma.
My favorite food memory was making kolachki with my family at Christmas time. We got together and made alot, then each took home some. Making memories with family is part of food memories!
My favorite food memory is making challah with my Bubbe.
My fav food memory is warm pancakes on Sunday mornings when it’s snowing outside. My family happy at the table all sticky and satisfied 🙂
I got my love of canning by watching my mother make grape jelly. I remember seeing the bag of grapes hanging from a kitchen cupboard and the juice slowly dripping into the bowl below.
I’d love to check out Berlin Kitchen. Many of my food memories are from my Mom’s & Grandma’s German cooking. That & good ole Troidl’s in Buffalo – the best Sauerbraten ever. Yum.