Plum Preservation

[transposable_element]

As I have mentioned before, we have a plum tree that gives us upwards of 70 lbs of plums each year in early summer. The last few years I have attempted to can plum halves in syrup. It has not gone well. So this year I tried something new.


Problems with canning

1. With nearly all the jars the syrup leaks through the seal while it's in the canner, which makes me worry about the integrity of the seal, though in practice all the seals have held and I have had no spoilage. I have tried adjusting headspace to no avail.
2. No matter how tightly I pack the plums I end up with a high syrup-to-plum ratio, with all of the plums clustering at the top of the jar and 1-2 inches of syrup at the bottom.
3. Even with raw pack, the plums end up mushy after 20 minutes of boiling in the water bath canner.

So this year I tried freezing instead. I just defrosted the first quart (I figured I ought to wait until local plum season was over before sampling them) and I am moderately pleased with the result.

Advantages of freezing

1. It's easy: Pack plums into container; pour over light syrup to cover; put parchment on top to ensure plums are below syrup level; put cover on container; freeze. I used plastic quart containers from our local ice cream shoppe; we buy a lot of ice cream from them, so we have a ton of these containers.
2. It's energy-efficient. No boiling for 20 minutes, yay!
3. The plums retain their shape and texture better than with canning.
4. It's damn near fool-proof. The only way they can spoil is if the freezer quits.

Disadvantages of freezing

1. It takes up freezer space, which is at more of a premium in our household than shelf space in the garage, where I keep most of my home-canned goods.
2. The containers aren't pretty, so they don't make good presents.

Overall, I'd say that freezing wins. I often give presents of home-canned goods at Christmas time, and what I may do is defrost some of the plums, transfer them to attractive glass jars, and give them away, with instructions to refrigerate and consume them quickly. On the other hand, I only froze four quarts (because I wasn't sure how it would come out) so maybe I will just eat them all myself.

Comments

[heliopausa]

I grew up with two plum trees! :) May I suggest plum chutney? Or plum sauce? (oh, delicious, spicy plum sauce!) Both are excellent as gifts or as household supplies. Plum jam (due to much early exposure) I can't quite see as 'special' enough for gifts, but it is excellent jam, and the easiest of all the plum things to make! :)

[transposable_element]

Oh, never fear, I have plum jam, jelly, syrup, chutney, and butter, not to mention plum liqueur. I have never made spicy plum sauce, though, so if you have a recipe I would love to have it!

I made some truly delicious plum & Pinot Noir jelly this summer, but it was an experiment and I stupidly didn't write down how I did it, so I hope I can duplicate it next summer.

Just curious: what do the terms "[fruit] butter," "[fruit] curd," and "[fruit] jelly" mean to you, if anything? I know that "jelly" in the U.S. is not what people call "jelly" in England (we call that "jello"), but I'm not sure about other varieties of English. And I noticed when I was in Hawaii that what I would call fruit curd was consistently called fruit butter, so now I'm thoroughly confused. On the other hand lilikoi curd is amazing even if you call it lilikoi butter, so I can't complain.

Okay, I see I'm babbling now....

[heliopausa]

Excellent! I don't have handy the recipe for the plum sauce, though my mother (and my aunt) made it every childhood summer that I can remember. It wasn't spicy in the chilli sense - more in the allspice sense - and it was very good on cold meats, especially.

Plum butter was not much like lemon butter, so fruit butter was/is a shifting term for me. Plum butter just seemed to me like a finer, smoother jam; lemon butter was delectable and buttery. (Both were somewhat tart as well as sweet; that's how I like them!) I faintly recognise that some people would call lemon butter, lemon curd, though I myself wouldn't; I would think of lemon curd (which I haven't made) as something that might be put as a filling in a sponge cake, say.

[transposable_element]

It's interesting how many different things you can do with plums and sugar! I make both plum jam and plum butter, and the essential difference is that jam is cooked quickly to a high temperature so that it jells, while fruit butter is cooked for a long time at a low temperature so that it reduces (and caramelizes, yum!). In the U.S., "jelly" is similar to jam except that it's made with clear juice, so you end up with a clear(ish) product with no lumps in it. I think we agree about what curd is -- it's similar to a stovetop custard. I use it to make tarts.

[marmota_b]

Um. That's not preserving, but plum... cake? Cuts? Relatively runny leavened dough (with enough butter or oil in it not to get dry quickly) into a flat baking pan, put plum halves on top densely, inside side up, top with butter + flour + sugar + cinnamon (+ ground walnuts if you can) crumb. DELICIOUS.

We freeze fruit in bags, without syrup. Quick, simple; of course, it still takes up freezer space. ETA: And of course, it's not giftable...

[transposable_element]

I will look for plum cake recipes. I think that could be done with frozen plums!

I'm not sure whether the syrup is necessary, but I think it does help keep the plums moist. They taste good, anyway! It's a very light syrup.

[marmota_b]

Yes, cakes like that can be done with fruit that was originally frozen - part of why we freeze it!

And next year, I just may have to try how it works with syrup. :-) We normally deal with sour cherries, which I guess is why we do it as quickly and simply as possible. a) Too many small fruits to deal with, b) they're juicy enough as it is.

[transposable_element]

I love sour cherries, and they're virtually impossible to find fresh here!

Did you see my post about beavers in California?