Plums | Gourmandistan

Plum buttercream further plumbs depths of fruit-based deliciousness

August 21, 2015 by Steve

Michelle’s discovery that most any fresh fruit juice can be used to flavor buttercream has created a bit of an unusual cake boom here in Gourmandistan. While handing over a hoarded, frozen slice of our white cake with wild blackberry buttercream to her mother, Michelle casually created another cake, this time with chocolate and red plum buttercream. The juice came from a batch of plums we luckily spotted on a recent market trip. We snatched them up to make jam (and several cold and […]

Categories: Cake, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit, Jams & Preserves, Plums, Recipes

Damson plums make some damn fine plum pie

September 12, 2014 by Steve

Except during our brief jaunt to Michigan, Gourmandistan has not seen many plums this year. While both of us remember plums picked from Kentucky trees in our youths, we don’t see them often in the markets—and we’ve been too lazy to ask the farmers why. (Though should any of you be reading this, we’d be happy to hear about it.) But we spotted a basket labeled “damson plums” at last week’s market and decided to ask about them. Our question turned into […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Old cookbooks, Pies & Tarts, Plums, Recipes

Pork chops with plums, cider and Petoskey stones

August 29, 2014 by Steve

This week, Gourmandistan briefly relocated to Lake Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay, just north of Northport, Michigan on the Leelanau Peninsula. It’s the first time we’ve been to a Great Lakes beach (downtown Chicago doesn’t count), and seeing the sand and sculpted landscapes left from ancient glacial action has indeed been impressive. Steve has enjoyed wandering the cool, curiously critter-free water, finding colorful minerals, smooth pebbles and a few things he’s convinced himself are Petoskey stones, since he’s resisted buying the varnished […]

Categories: Cooking, Plums, Pork, Recipes

Camille Glenn’s plum tart, or Marian Burros’ plum torte?

August 16, 2013 by Steve

It’s a very tasty plum tart. Buttery, jammy yet still light. We got the recipe from a late 20th century Louisville Courier-Journal clipping (the back side of the undated article talks about Seinfeld leading the ratings so we know it had to have been published somewhere in the 1989 to 1998 time frame). And Michelle’s mother’s handwritten note marked it as a Camille Glenn recipe. Indeed, the “Classic Plum Tart” calls for “cognac vanilla,” a signature Glenn ingredient. And yet, […]

Categories: Cake, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Old cookbooks, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian

Plum, Dumb & Full of Crumb

August 21, 2012 by Steve

Sorry, people who put him in the “crazy” camp: Steve was not doing exactly the same thing and expecting different results. After all, these smaller, redder plums were purchased from a different vendor. And this time Steve did not leave them sitting in a bowl on the counter. He left them sitting on the counter in a paper bag, which somehow rendered them invisible. Fortunately, these plums ripened much less violently than their predecessors, with only a few having matured […]

Categories: Blueberries, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian

Impulse to action via Roasted Plum Frozen Yogurt

August 13, 2012 by Steve

We have been talking about fresh plums all summer long. When we finally spotted them at a recent market, we (OK Steve) couldn’t resist snapping up a bagful without bothering to ask the vendor anything regarding variety, locality or organicity. When we returned home all we knew was they were big, very purple and seemed very, very unripe. A few days later we also discovered they were very, very sensitive, as almost half of our purchase “ripened” into juice-weeping balls […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Ice cream, Plums, Recipes, Vegetarian, Yogurt