plum compote with vanilla ice cream and fresh whipped cream

plum compote

I don't know about you, but one of the things I miss most about summer is stone fruit. There's nothing better than sinking your teeth into a ripe, juicy peach, plum or nectarine. Of course, that makes a mushy or flavorless specimen all the more disappointing. I love a good plum, but since they are often fairly tart, it's harder to find a really delicious one.

Back in September, we got a bunch of slightly tart but nice little plums. They weren't quite sweet enough on their own for my taste, so I baked some of them into a cake. After a couple of days, the remaining plums started to get a little overripe an squishy. I couldn't let them go to the waste so this is what I came up with: a compote.


boozy plum compote with fresh whipped cream over vanilla ice cream

I think this is a compote, anyway. Basically, I just chopped up the plums and added a little sugar, a dash of cinnamon and a glug of my vanilla bean rum. Then I let it bubble away for 15 or so minutes until it got all stewed and syrupy delicious.

I may have made it a tad too sweet, but it was still incredibly delicious hot from the pot, served over vanilla ice cream with fresh whipped cream. I have to admit I ate this compote all by myself, but I bet it would make a pretty impressive and totally easy dessert for company. I know it'll be a while before plums are in season again, so maybe that's not the most helpful suggestion. Perhaps you could try apples? Maybe I'll test it out. Based on my track record you should expect a blog post in about two months.

dimply plum cake: homely but delicious

the famous dimply plum cake

Geeze. If you want a real idea of how infrequently I've been blogging lately, consider this: I baked this cake on September 3th. It is now November 1st, and New York has seen the temperatures dip into the thirties as the days begin to get shorter and shorter. September already seems like long ago, but try to remember to way back then: it was the Friday of Labor Day weekend. The East Coast was prepped for a massive hurricane set to put a major damper on the holiday. I had spent the afternoon at the hospital for my jaw's grand reopening. Though this was very exciting, it was also somewhat of a painful process. The wires had been drilled through my gums to hold the arch bars in place, so pulling them out required lots of novocain and left my gums inflamed and sore.

Even though they had replaced the wires clamping my teeth shut with more forgiving rubber bands a week and a half before, my jaw was still fragile and weak, which precluded me from eating all but the softest foods. Regardless, I was excited to be on the mend and free of the unslightly metal braces for the first time in over 5 weeks. I was looking forward to spending the weekend out on Long Island with Nathan's family and my own, and to putting my injury behind me.

I like to be a good house guest, so I spent that Friday night baking this dimply plum cake for Nathan's step-mom's friends Liz and Harry, who were kind enough to invite us to their home.


smooshed plum cake

I know that is one shockingly ugly cake. I foolishly wrapped it up in foil for easy transit before it cooled, so it steamed in the wrapper and the top turned into an unsightly sticky mess. Of course, we don't eat cake because it looks good– we eat cake because of the way it tastes. This cake, a recipe by Dorie Greenspan, is an internet sensation, so my expectations were high. The cake was less sweet than most, but pleasantly so, and was nice and moist from the large chunks of fruit. I was happy to use so many of my food co-op plums to make it, and I liked the hint of cinnamon flavor. It was a good dessert to usher in fall with the last of summer's stone fruit. Very seasonal, but not actually the most inspiring dessert you've ever eaten.

As luck would have it, the over-hyped Earl stayed off shore and the weather held up beautifully. We went swimming, took a motorboat out to Fire Island and foraged for beach plums on Saturday before heading north to Northport and spending Sunday sailing in the bay with my Dad. As for the food, I obviously missed out on all the grilled steak and corn on the cob at dinner, but Nathan's step-mom Patricia and step-sister Helen made sure there was plenty of soft and juicy salmon for me to enjoy.

Dessert was even easier, as cakes and pies can easily be mashed up into easily swallowed spoonfuls. With my wires gone, eating the same plate of dessert as everyone else, I was finally able to forget about my broken jaw and begin to enjoy food again. Based on taste alone, dimply plum cake may not have been the revelation I hoped for. I imagine that there are other plum based desserts that are just as good, if not better, even if their names aren't as cute. That being said, it was still delicious. Everyone else told me they liked it, but to me, at that point in time, dimply plum cake tasted like hope.

beach plums are so hot right now

a quick note:

last week, I posted about cooking with coastal beach plums. just a few days later an organization no less important than NPR followed my lead with this article on the elusive summer fruit. check it out if you're looking to make the renowned beach plum jelly! damn I am so au currant.

foraged beach plum and strawberry crisp

So this weekend was my first one without wires in over 5 weeks. I celebrated by heading out to Long Island with Nathan. There, we spent time with our respective families and enjoyed ourselves out on the water. In addition to sailing in Northport Harbor with my dad, we also got to take a motor boat out to Fire Island, which was surprisingly beautiful. It really felt like it was miles and miles from anything. Gorgeous.



Here we are out on the beach. The surf was incredibly rough courtesy of the otherwise utterly unimpressive Hurricane Earl, so we couldn't go swimming, but it was still awesome.



That first photo is just a small sample of the mind blowingly beautiful view. What you can't see is that the small, scrubby looking little bushes on either side of the walkway are actually laden with these tiny and tart beach plums. They look a little bit like overgrown blueberries, and are sweet with a tangy bitter aftertaste. Nathan and I had never seen them before, but we foraged a few handfuls, which we transported in my camera case, and took home to bake with.



Like the friendly Fire Island natives who assured us that these strange fruits were edible, my mom knew exactly what the beach plums were, and that they are most commonly made into jam. I like jam, but I don't use it all that often. Instead, I decided to make a nice beach plum crisp for dessert.



Here is the recipe, which either my mom or I clipped from Newsday years ago, although it says it was distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Anyway, I was only able to forage a small amount of beach plums, so I had to scale everything way down. We had only enough for four very small servings, so it must have been less than half the amount. I did not adjust the ratios in the written recipe, because I don't think I could accurately represent them. The great thing about crisps is that it's not a real topping, but just a crumbly topping that basically toasts on top of the fruit. It's very hard to mess up.



I also made a few substitutions with the ingredients, so I made those adjustments. The topping called for half butter and half oil, but my mom insisted on all butter, which worked perfectly. I also swapped out a couple of tablespoons of apple juice in the crust for maple syrup. The fruit filling was the most significant change. Originally, it included plums, blueberries and peaches or nectarines. I obviously used beach plums instead, and also strawberries, or else it would have been a little bitty baby crisp. Obviously, you can interchange whatever kind of fruits you have around. Also, I accidentally used regular sugar instead of the prescribed brown, with no ill effects. Finally, the serving suggestion was with vanilla frozen yogurt, but we went with Philadelphia style vanilla. Yum.



Without further ado:

Beach Plum-Berry Crisp
Topping:
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
¾ cup rolled oats
¾ cup flour
4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp maple syrup

Fruit Filling
2 pounds ripe beach plums, pitted and sliced
2 cups sliced strawberries
¼ cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
dash ground ginger

1 qt vanilla ice cream, optional

1. Preheat oven to 400°. For topping, combine sugar, oats and flour in large bowl. Blend in butter until crumbly. Stir in maple syrup with fork until mixture is evenly moistened. Set aside.
2. For filling, combine beach plums, strawberries, maple syrup, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, nutmeg and ginger and toss gently to combine in a shallow 2-quart baking dish.
3. Sprinkle topping evenly over the fruit mixture. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until top is golden and filling is bubbling. Let cool about 10 minutes. Serve hot or warm, with vanilla ice cream. Makes 8 servings.



It was slightly tart because of the beach plums, but super delicious and easy. And I got to forage! So cool!