Ripe plums in the icebox signal the coming of autumn, when peaches peter out of our fruit bowls to be replaced by the deep purple stone fruit. This time of year, they’re juicy enough to be eaten fresh, baked into pies and crisps, or simmered into jams. 

In many cultures, plums symbolize hope and strength. Japanese umeboshi are tucked into onigiri (rice balls). Li hing mui from China are popular crack seed store snacks in Honolulu and, in powdered form, a sweet-tart addition to tropical cocktails. In the Balkans, locals sip slivovitz, a plum-based spirit that is especially revered in Serbia, where it’s the quintessential toast on Slava, the Orthodox Christian feast day honoring each family’s patron saint. Pickled plums are an essential ingredient in chamoy, the Mexican condiment drizzled on fruit cups, paletas, and mangonadas. Plums also pair beautifully with roasted meats, and add tartness to salads. And who can resist the damsons baked into pies and other sweet, syrupy treats?   

These are our favorite plum recipes—the ones we sip, bake, and brûlée whenever we’re feeling (or want to feel) plummy.

Plum Galette

This rustic tart adapted from Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse Café Cookbook calls for a combination of plums and pluots (fragrant apricot-plum hybrids), but it’s equally comforting when made with one or the other stone fruit. Get the recipe >

Plum Shrub

Add a splash of this tart liqueur by Girl Meets Dirt founder Audra Lawlor to any fizzy seltzer, or to a tequila-lime cooler. Get the recipe >

Rye Crêpes with Black Plum Flambée

In this old-school dessert, barrel-aged plum eau-de-vie infuses the caramelized fruit, which is set ablaze and spooned over warm rye crêpes. Get the recipe >

Brûléed Plums with Armagnac Custard

Tiny Italian plums have a dark-berry sweetness that pairs wonderfully with this simple, French-inspired Armagnac custard. Get the recipe >

Peach and Plum Salad

Red wine vinegar balances the sweetness of ripe peaches and plums in this easy fruit salad. Try it with finger-licking fried chicken. Get the recipe >

Plum Pie

The secret to author Wendy Drummond’s prize-winning pie is good old-fashioned grape jelly. The gooey filling is intensely sweet, just right with a dollop of ice cream. Get the recipe >

Plum and Raspberry Jam

This delicate preserve redolent of mulling spices is adapted from a recipe by Camilla Wynne’s Jam Bake: Inspired Recipes for Creating and Baking with Preserves. Get the recipe >

Roast Duck with Plums

A rich plum sauce infused with cloves and cinnamon enlivens crisp roast duck in this Bavarian-style recipe. Get the recipe >

Fig, Plum and Prosciutto Salad

This recipe layers ripe figs and plums with Hungarian sonka, a hammy cousin to prosciutto, and creamy Emmi Kaltbach Le Crémeux cheese. Get the recipe >

Plum Blackberry Lattice Pie

Instead of standard vanilla, use fragrant almond extract as a flavor booster in this classic fruit pie. Get the recipe >

Pickled Stone Fruit and Burrata Flatbread

Schilling Restaurant and Bar is locally famous for this Austrian-style grilled flatbread stacked with pickled peaches and plums. Get the recipe >

The post We’re Plum Crazy About These 11 Recipes appeared first on Saveur.

Vielle Prune is a barrel-aged plum eau-de-vie from southwestern France’s Armagnac region. Look for it in your local wine and spirits shop, order it online, or substitute any unsweetened stonefruit brandy such as kirschwasser or slivovitz.

Featured in: “Plum Flambée Is a Fragrant, Fleshy Ode to Eau-de-Vie.”

Our Best Summer Plum Recipes

The waxy little stone fruits are in season for a short while, take advantage of them while you can »

The post Rye Crêpes with Black Plum Flambée appeared first on Saveur.

Some of the world’s greatest dishes demand a nip of wine or spirits to reach their full potential. Welcome to Splash in the Pan, where writer and drinks expert Tammie Teclemariam teaches you how to bring them to life.

Even at peak season farmers markets, fruit isn’t always perfectly ready-to-eat. Case in point: plums, which appear at the end of every summer in a spectrum of yellow, red, and purple fruits from walnut- to apple-size. The best plums for cooking and baking are dark and small, and since they hold a lot of their flavor in the skin, they benefit from a little coaxing with heat and sugar. But instead of turning on the oven to bake, I reach for some eau-de-vie and flambé away. 

Eau-de-vie (unaged fruit brandy) is one of my favorite things to drink (and cook with) for the way it captures the full fleshy fragrance of the fruit. The most popular ones are made from pears, apricots, cherries (known as “kirschwasser” in Germany), and plums (aka “slivovitz” in Eastern Europe). Because it takes a lot of fruit to make a single bottle of eau-de-vie, it can be pricey depending on the source. There are some extremely fancy brandies out there, as well as a lot of more approachable ones, often available in half-bottles for between $20 and $30 from producers like Trimbach in France and St. George in California. 

You can flambé plums with any stone fruit brandy you might already have on hand, but I love matching fruit with a kindred spirit whenever possible. I use a plum brandy called La Vieille Prune—which hails from Gascony, France, a region best known for Armagnac—which undergoes a bit of time in barrel (versus most plum brandy on the market being unaged).  

I start by making a caramel, which adds a richness that matches the dark fruit flavor. Next, I cook the plums until soft and add lemon juice to correct the acidity before I flambée. I pour a couple of shots of brandy into a measuring cup or empty saucepan (never pour spirits directly from a bottle into a pan, as they can ignite) and then carefully add the liquid to the hot pan. You can ignite the alcohol fumes by tipping the pan toward the flame of your stove, but the safest way is to use a long lighter so you can stand as far back as possible. 

Flambée is pretty underrated in my opinion. There’s nothing like a little bit of controlled fire in your food. Not only is it fun to watch things burn, it also lets you know that the bulk of your alcohol has burned off, an important step to keep your dish from having an unbalanced boozy heat. 

Once the saucy plums have stopped flaming, they’re ready to serve. You can have them with ice cream or custard, but I take a page from another flaming dish, crêpes suzette, by serving dark rye crepes dipped in the caramelized sauce and topped with plums.

The post Plum Flambée Is a Fragrant, Fleshy Ode to Eau-de-Vie appeared first on Saveur.

Pectin—a naturally occurring polysaccharide in fruit—is what makes jam gel. Different fruits naturally contain more or less pectin, so, while you never need to worry about a Seville orange marmalade or quince jelly getting a proper set (unless you undercook or overcook them), some low-pectin fruits, like cherries and pears, don’t gel so easily. 

High-pectin fruits include apples, citrus, currants, cranberries, gooseberries, plums, and quince. On the lower end of the pectin spectrum are blueberries, cherries, peaches, pears, and strawberries. You must also take the fruit’s degree of ripeness into account, however. The riper the fruit, the less natural pectin it contains. For the best jams and jellies, aim for a mixture of 75% perfectly ripe fruit and 25% slightly underripe fruit. 

This recipe, which can be adjusted to feature a variety of different fruits, is adapted from the basic jam recipe in Camilla Wynne’s book Jam Bake: Inspired Recipes for Creating and Baking with Preserves.

Featured in: “How to Quickly and Safely Can Jams and Jellies.”

The post Plum and Raspberry Jam appeared first on Saveur.

This pie recipe and technique—from chef Laurent Gras and writer Mitchell Davis—can be adapted to use just about any summer fruit that you like. Try substituting the vanilla to your taste with almond extract or any liqueur. If working with extremely ripe and juicy fruit, add an extra tablespoon or two of cornstarch to adequately thicken the filling.

Featured in: “4 Simple Steps to Baking Better Pie.”

Blackberry and Blueberry Pie

Still have an abundance of berries? Use the rest in this Blackberry and Blueberry Pie »

The post Plum-Blackberry Pie appeared first on Saveur.

Afghan saffron dealer Tahmina Ghaffer prepares this rich and fragrant stew when she misses her family. She says her mother always adds dried sour plums, which can be found at well-stocked Middle Eastern and Asian markets and spice shops. Saffron intensifies the flavor and aroma of the finished dish, so don’t be tempted to omit it. Find Ghaffer’s own “super negin” saffron—the highest grade of the spice—online.

Featured in “This Afghan Entrepreneur Directly Supports Women Who Harvest The World’s Most Precious Spice.”

The post Kofta Chalau (Afghan-Style Meatballs with Saffron, Split Peas, and Sour Plums) appeared first on Saveur.

The filling-to-crust ratio in this rustic tart adapted from Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse Café Cookbook lets the fruit shine. The original recipe calls for a combination of plums and pluots (the sweet-tart, intensely perfumed cross between a plum and an apricot), but it’s also delicious made with just one or the other.

Adapted from Chez Panisse Café Cookbook by Alice Waters (HarperCollins) © 1999.

Featured in: The “Chez Panisse Café Cookbook,” by Alice Waters, Still Holds Up

Equipment

• Large Bowl
• Parchment Paper
• Rolling Pin
• Thin Offset Spatula
• Cake Stand or Large Flat Plate

The post Plum Galette appeared first on Saveur.

If you’re driving the winding roads of Orcas Island in late summer, you can smell the ripening fruit all around. On one such morning last year, I stopped the car at my destination and met Audra Lawlor, owner of Girl Meets Dirt, who was surveying one orchard’s recent Italian plum harvest in tall rubber boots and a denim shirt. As we walked among the rows of trees with their full canopies spilling over onto the trail, Audra picked up a fallen plum from the ground and turned it over in her hand between us. “Before I got here, most of the fruit from these trees would have rotted on the ground,” she says. Lawlor and her team of five mighty women at Girl Meets Dirt harvested more than 2,500 pounds of Italian plums alone last season.

Some people leave their corporate jobs to rescue animals. Audra left Wall Street to rescue pink pearl apples and Orcas pears. Today, many of the island’s residents see her as the steward of the legacy fruit trees on the island, a 57-square-mile piece of the San Juan Islands, an archipelago that lies in the waters between Seattle and Vancouver, just barely on the U.S. side of the border.

Orcas owes its long history of orchards to the area’s unique climate. Known as Washington’s “banana belt,” and also called the Olympia Rainshadow Zone, this area is protected from excess rain by the Olympic Mountains, Vancouver Island, and the Cascades, and it enjoys more sun annually than mainland coastal Washington. Lawlor likens it to Northern California in its ability to sustain crops.

It was horticulturist E.V. Von Gohren in the late 1870s who first proclaimed the climate ideal for growing Italian plums, better known to the locals as prunes, because that is what most of them eventually became. The mild climate and rich soil encouraged settlers on the island to plant nurseries of these plums, along with apples, pears, and, by some records, up to 20,000 total fruit varieties, from apricots to cherries and berries. But the Italian plums had the prized seeds, the trees bearing them deemed to have the greatest commercial potential at the time.

By the end of the 19th century, many inhabitants had made their way over to work the plum orchards and operate the prune dryers (barnlike structures where the fruit was set to shrivel up), and the economy was surging. The success allowed the building of docks for steamships, as well as a boon for jobs sorting, grading, and packing fruit for transport. It also led to an island that became far more orchard than anything else. The country lane that runs through the center of Orcas Island’s main village is still named Prune Alley.

Many of the legacy fruit trees—entire orchards of them—fell into disrepair during a period of economic downturn around 1915. It was in part due to the rise of railroads, improved irrigation, and heavy planting in nearby eastern Washington, which became a fierce competitor. Islanders began to ignore the fallen fruit, and tree limbs weakened with overgrowth. Thousands of trees were left to die, and the plum industry collapsed. It wasn’t until decades later, when the island began attracting new residents—those who sought out the area for its bucolic landscape—that the trees gained new stewards. Today, Lawlor and her company are working with fellow islanders to revive and utilize those trees that remain.

Raised in Washington, Lawlor spent years working in New York City but always knew she would one day return to the Pacific Northwest. The San Juan Islands were her fantasy destination, but the move never seemed practical. That is, until 2011, when she left her lucrative but hectic job with her husband and two dogs to go full-on Green Acres. The couple bought a farmette on the secluded island, determined to live a simpler life. “I didn’t have a plan,” Lawlor says. “I just knew I wanted to get my hands dirty.”

It was in those early days that Lawlor found a passion for fruit. During her first fall season on the island, the seven fruit trees on her property bore more than 200 pounds of apples and pears. She began making pies and jams but quickly found her kitchen filled with yet more fruit—quince, crab apples, and plums—as her new neighbors welcomed her with edible gifts. “I fell in love with the sense of abundance on my property, and all around me on the island. I wanted to learn more,” she says. She turned to a local cookbook club for education, camaraderie, and inspiration.

Come Thanksgiving 2013, Lawlor found her kitchen filled with boxes upon boxes of homemade preserves she had taught herself to make. At the urging of family and friends, she created Girl Meets Dirt to do something productive with her newfound hobby. She began producing handmade, organic preserves from the island’s ­century-​old trees, and selling it locally under the small label.

As her business grew over the years, so did the need for more fruit and other flavors. But rather than purchasing it from commercial farmers, Lawlor decided to take a more community-minded approach and build win-win relationships with local residents. “Some people don’t even know they have [fruit trees] on their property,” she says. She didn’t have to go far to find her first stewardship arrangement; it was right next door. The 5-acre farm was covered with overgrown, untended Bartlett pear trees, prompting Lawlor to approach the farm’s owners, Dale and Marcia Gillingham, about helping. “It started with a casual ‘use our fruit’ relationship, and then over the years, I offered to start taking care of the pruning in winter just to give something back,” she says. “They were never farmers or commercial growers; they just happened to have bought property with a lovely old orchard on it and are glad to see the fruit being used.” Since then, a few local farmers have offered to sell her items—tomatoes, peppers, and local herbs, including sage and rosemary, and chamomile, which she uses in her jams and products.

Lawlor’s approach is “to make the most of what trees are still here.” She adheres to the practice—as in the nose-to-tail movement—of using all parts of the ingredient. This year, she began processing the pits, bark, and leaves of plum, apple, and fragrant peach trees and fruits (and a little alcohol) to create “tree bitters,” which she barrel-ages using either bourbon barrels from Washington distilleries or spent local apple-brandy barrels. The latter relationship led to her creating her first batch of apple brandy in 2019, in partnership with Orcas Island Distillery.

Lawlor trades with up to 100 people each harvest season, including those on neighboring islands, whose fruits arrive by ferry. “Often, people just show up at my door with boxes of whatever they have,” she says, “and sometimes they just want to trade it for some preserves.”

The Girl Meets Dirt commercial kitchen is more reminiscent of your grandmother’s kitchen than that of a finely tuned business that sells and ships handcrafted preserves around the nation. In summer and fall, dozens of rustic crates teeming with reds, purples, and greens are stacked ceiling high, creating a maze of narrow passageways for Lawlor and her team. Large copper pots sit atop expansive burners that line an entire wall. There’s little prep work required; Lawlor boils the fruit with the skin still intact to take full advantage of the peels’ natu­ral tannins, pectin (which thickens juices so they set into jams), and full flavors.

The team uses a classic French confiture technique to create their spoon preserves. It starts with a quick, high-heat cook in broad-bottom copper pots to remove water from the fruit as quickly as possible to fortify the fruit’s essence. The cooks will then macerate the fruit with sugar for 24 hours to concentrate and sweeten the flavors. Finally, they’ll cook the fruit slowly until it’s broken down into pieces and suspended in a clear, thickened syrup. Some preserves are inspired by Lawlor’s travels. In Spain and Argentina, she encountered dulce de membrillo (a prized quince paste), and now makes a plum version inspired by it. Once the ripe, purple fruit—some from trees nearly 100 years old—is cooked, it’s hand-milled and simmered slowly into a concentrated spread, perfect for cheeseboards or slathering on toast.

As we talk over the sounds of the busy kitchen, Charles West of Orcas Island Distillery stops by to check on a recent collaboration. “How is the pear situation going?” he asks. Lawlor responds: “I can’t process them fast enough. But what’s urgent right now is rotting plums,” she says, indicating her need to get back to her kitchen. Before long, the copper pots are gurgling with deep-purple juices.

Her relentless, ever-growing enthusiasm for the region and its community, and for putting its bounty to use, is as pure as the products Lawlor makes. “The very challenges of the island,” she says—of its particular weather, the island’s rhythms, and keeping up with fruit bursting from tree limbs—“are also the things that make it romantically ideal, and intriguing. Our difference is the fruit we use,” she adds, pausing, “and all the ways we get it.”

The post This Orcas Island Jam Company Transforms Local Plums into Vibrant Seasonal Preserves appeared first on Saveur.

The key to this type of preserve is a long, slow cook to concentrate the purée into a smooth, dense paste. To avoid sticking, bubbling, and scorching, be sure to give the plumbrillo plenty of attention and time on the stove. It can also be cooked on a baking sheet in a low oven like a traditional quince membrillo. A byproduct of this method is a vibrant plum juice: save it for another use, such as this Plum Shrub.

Featured in: This Orcas Island Jam Company Transforms Local Plums into Vibrant Seasonal Preserves

Equipment

• Heavy-Bottomed Pot
• Large Strainer
• Heat-Resistant Bowl
• Food Mill
• Small, Heat-Resistant Plate
• Large, Nonreactive Pot
• Candy Thermometer
• Wooden Spoon
• Kitchen Towel

The post Plum Paste (Plumbrillo) appeared first on Saveur.

There’s a reason the Italian prune plum is one of Girl Meets Dirt’s signature spoon preserves. Full of natural pectin and with a skin that lends a crimson color to the syrup, this tart fruit practically begs to be made into jam. Founder Audra Lawlor makes hers with licorice-like anise hyssop, but fresh mint or basil also pairs nicely for a more summery flavor.

Featured in: This Orcas Island Jam Company Transforms Local Plums into Vibrant Seasonal Preserves

Equipment

• Large Bowl
• Small Plate
• Medium Pot
• Candy Thermometer

The post Italian Plum Jam appeared first on Saveur.