Plum Gin

Never mind the excess fruit from the plot, what about the excess fruit all around us?

The Mudchute farm that surrounds the allotments has tens of plum trees which have been left unattended and are now quite large. As you walk along the paths and under the trees you can’t help stepping on the fallen plums that litter the floor.

I presume what the birds don’t get first the squirrels get and store them away. This time of year the paths are covered in purple, plums all waiting to be saved from the soles of shoes.

I often pick fresh fallen fruit checking that they are ripe and within no time have a bucket full of them. The question is what to do with them once washed and dried?

Frankly, the stones take up the majority of what is collected and de-stoning the fruit is not a rewarding or exciting job and yields are questionable for the effort expended.

So, it was great to discover a solution which preserves the fruit whilst adding a twist to your favourite tipple and a boozy complement to rich custard on a winter evening.

Plums and damsons ripen at the same time and can be preserved in gin, grated quince in brandy and rhubarb with orange in vodka.

You leave the skin on just piercing it with a fork or silver pin and leaving the stone as it can add a nice almondy flavour to the gin. An alternative to the piercing is to leave the fruit in a freezer for a few days. You then get a wide mouthed Kilner type jar that has been thoroughly cleaned and add the fruit.

Next you add around 80g of caster sugar and vary this according to the sweetness sought. Then a 700ml of gin is added, the lid sealed, and the jar given a quick shake to dissolve the sugar. Store in a cool dark place for 3 to 4 months.

‘What are you doing with that gin?’ asks my wife Annie as she sees me taking the bottle from the cupboard.

I reply, ‘Just giving this old Larios gin a shot in the arm, dear’.

Her eyes narrow and she comes across to the worktop where I am about to drown the sugary plums in gin. ‘I can get cordial if you want to flavour the gin.’

I respond, ‘But this is making use of these plums.’

‘Better taste good then and you owe the cupboard one bottle of Larios.’ Annie is obviously not enthusiastic about the use of the gin and I see Lottie is shaking her head and tutting in the corner too even though she doesn’t drink alcohol or eat fruit!

I continue and ignore the protests, after all its only Larios from Spain.

You can shake the jar and taste the sweetness every now and again. Finally strain through a sieve into a bottle using a funnel and you have gin infused with plum.

I offer, ‘The fruit can be served as a boozy extra treat dessert with ice cream or custard.’

‘As I said you owe the cupboard one bottle of gin and given the waiting time, make it a good one and not the Larios we bring back from Majorca.

You can’t win and I think I’ll leave the plums to the birds and squirrels next time.

I wonder if it works with cherries and brandy?

A Refreshing Way to Use all that Fruit

If you grow fruit you know that it always comes at once and once started different fruit come in waves one after another.

The first is the rhubarb and the obvious crumble, pies and stews all with a few chucks of fresh ginger.

The soft fruit the currants white, black and red hanging in clusters waiting to be picked and smell with childhood memories as they are collected, usually accompanied by gooseberries which have softened, and if you dare to put your hands in, give generously. The comes the raspberries in waves up to autumn.

The cherries are a short season which is often shortened further by the birds who sit there picking at them and then dropping the half-eaten fruit to the floor just to remind you that they were there first.

We are now into serious baking and stewing. A bowl at breakfast with Greek yogurt and some granola and fresh orange juice. We get the fresh oranges from Soller in Mallorca and we could be back in the Mediterranean sitting here on a sunny morning in London.

After dinner more fresh fruit, this time with custard and sometimes warmed up.

However, the fruit keeps coming and now the strawberries are competing for attention.

The blackberries on the path to the allotments are getting ready to offer themselves up and large yogurt tubs will be frozen for winter pies.

You can juice some but then what is the point unless you want to bake cakes and use the rinds and pulp in the cake and the juice for drizzle? I do like making Polenta cakes with fruit but in winter. However, I will freeze some for baking cakes later.

All this without the plums, pears and apples!

Some will be wanting to make pressee and cordials or even wine, but we have never been into the exercise nor following recipes to the letter or, in the case of wine, waiting. Mind you when the vine give up their grapes this year we are probably going to have to change our thinking on wine.

Now my wife Annie has found the perfect solution - ice lollies. No more Magnum and Solera lollies we make our own. Yesterday the moulds arrived. Today we are eating red and black currant, gooseberry and rhubarb ice lolly. Wow, and it tastes good and so clean on the palette on this hot day.

We had tried an ice cream maker but found it too much faff and too much cream and frankly gave up as it took too much space in the freezer.

We spent some time discussing the next batches and also what we could experiment with. Sweetened yogurt twirled in with stewed or juiced fruit sounded divine. Yogurt sweetened with honey and added to stewed gooseberries. The list went on and we realised that we had found another way to use and enjoy the harvest.

Tutti Frutti!!!!