Baking,  Food

Plums, Plums & More Plums

42 lbs of delicious prune plums
42 lbs of delicious prune plums

We always say that my friend Mari knows everyone, and in a way it’s sort of true. So when I mentioned at work how much Gili and I love picking fruit, and that we would be happy to pick some plums, she immediately connected us with friends of hers in Burnaby.

We cycled to their place on a beautiful Sunday morning, and we weren’t sure what to expect. When we arrived, we knew we didn’t ride for nothing – the tree was absolutely full of fruit. We immediately got started and as soon as I tasted one plum I was in heaven. These dark purple prunes were so sweet and soft that they melted in my mouth with every bite. I couldn’t stop eating. I found it amazing that the people who own the house don’t want to keep the plums and that for them the plums are more of a burden than a delight.

Dimply Plum Cake
Dimply Plum Cake

Gili didn’t waste time, and was already up on the tree, filling bucket after bucket and passing them on to me. We picked mostly for the owners and for their relative who was also there. They said that they would eat about 20 plums and give the rest to their neighbours and friends.

Plum Kuchen
Plum Kuchen

We still ended up cycling home with about 42 pounds of plums (well, Gili carried them, of course). It wasn’t a “crisis” like we had with the cherries, but I was still happy to do a few baking experiments. I also gave quite a few plums to Mari and her family, since without her it wouldn’t have happened.

Coarse Plum Crumbcake
Coarse Plum Crumbcake
  1. Fine Plum Crumbcake (from Baking): this one will tickle your tongue lightly, like a feather on the king’s toes.
  2. Dimply Plum Cake: if you could take a cake and punch baked plums into it, this is what it would be like – yummy!
  3. Coarse Plum Crumbcake: like a cross between plum crumble and a sponge cake – enjoy the best of both worlds.
  4. Plum Kuchen: a lovely plum carpet.

What else can you do with plums? They are wonderful in a salad or dehydrated as a snack. If you pit them you can enjoy baking with them months later by freezing them, and don’t forget the humble smoothy – throw some plums in a blender with some yoghurt and milk, and you’re all set.

Fine Plum Crumbcake
Fine Plum Crumbcake

3 Comments

  • Peta Kaplan

    Mmmm plums.. something we don’t get here. But if find yourselves here in Granada, Nicaragua by end of February, you will be in for a treat w the start of Mango season. Our own huge mature tree in peak season will drop 20 fruit a day, and you can easily get hit on the head if you happen to be underneath the spot where on falls. Nothing quite like eating a mango right off the tree… man oh man, just salivating thinking of it. Then everywhere you drive in Nicaragua just about you can buy a whole bucket of mangoes for a dollar.

  • Gili

    Wow, that sounds amazing, and I look forward to experiencing it first hand! I’ve only had mangoes once directly from a tree – in Israel, near the Sea of Galilee, where mangoes, lychees and bananas are grown successfully. I must agree that fruit eaten directly from the tree is the best. At least in part it is due to picking fruit when it is fully ripe – most fruit is picked early to allow for shipping and storage, and hence misses out on that last infusion of sugars.