plum and almond galette

plums are back in season and, having just received a couple of bags of them from food4, i’m a happy girl. my usual choice for cooking with them is nigel slater’s moist plum cake but when i saw deb’s nectarine galette i decided to try something different.

the resulting galette (a french word which can be used to describe this sort of free-form tart) was delicious, especially the edges of the plum pieces which caramelised as it cooked.

i loosely followed deb’s recipe, which is in turn based on an alice waters recipe, but doubled the pastry quantities as i had over a dozen plums which i wanted use up. as suggested, i cooked the tart on a pizza stone. however, assembling the tart on a board and then shimmying it onto the hot stone was definitely a two-man job so, if you’re home-alone when you try this out, think about assembling and cooking it on a baking sheet.

i ate mine with double cream and david had his with vanilla and blackberry ice-cream. yum!

Click to read more ...

spiced plums with calvados

 

back in august i bought several kilos of plums. some were made into plum and bay jam (which we are still working our way through) and the rest were been turned into a boozy delight that we have just sampled – plums in orange-spiced calvados.

Click to read more ...

plummy plums!

living in central London and only occasionally visiting the countryside around the UK means that when i have the opportunity to visit a farm shop i often go overboard with my purchases.

at the weekend we stopped off at a roadside farm shop which was selling the most beautiful plums. small, deep purple, warm and tasting like the nectar of the gods; i had to have a box of them – a mere 2 kilos to dispose of.

plum jam was the first thing i wanted to make, but plum jam with a twist - i decided to add bay leaves to give it an extra depth of flavour.

the verdict?

well, i didn’t get the first taste of my jam but according to the person who did: “well, it's lovely of course. and it tastes slightly ginger-y, which might be an effect of adding the bay. and it is as dark as midnight in alaska in the winter. and it has a treacle-like texture. and it's good on soda farls.”

a success!

Click to read more ...