Plum Coffee Cake

Tomorrow is the East Bay Vegan Bake Sale - I wanted to make something that could be made for a reasonably affordable amount (making the final product cheaper!) and which could be made in quantity and that would use some of my fresh/local yummy ingredients.  Originally, I thought of making my favorites - lemon bars, chocolate peanut butter cups and such but since I haven't had a good coffee cake lately ... well...

A coffee cake with plum topping seemed like the ideal choice - and being too lazy to convert my grandmother's Bavarian Coffee Cake recipe (I swear! I will do it one day soon!) - I took inspiration from VeganYumYum's Apple Pie Coffee Cake recipe.  Here's my spin, resulting in ...


Crumble Top Cherry Plum Coffee Cake:


FRUIT TOPPING:
1 qt bag of plum puree (that good stuff leftover in the jelly bag from making jelly last summer with the cherry plums)
1 c succanat

Set puree & succanat on the stove on low to simmer - reduce til thick, at least reduce by 50%.

CRUMBLE TOPPING
1 c oats
1 c flour
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c melted coconut oil
1 tsp cinnamon

Blend all ingredients til you can cake them together with your hands and crumble into bits - yum.

CAKE

2 1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
2 1/2 c unbleached flour
1 c unrefined granulated sugar
1 c succanat
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt

3 tsp Mexican cinnamon (ceylon cinnamon)
2 tsp ground cardomom
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
2/3 c canola or grapeseed oil (or a blend)
2/3 c plum puree
1 1/3 cup almond milk + 2 tb apple cider vinegar
3 tb En-R-G Egg replacer
1 tsp almond extract
2 tsp vanilla extract

Blend all ingredients - should be very thick, almost like a dough - it will rise and goodness will happen.  Lightly oil your pan(s) - I decided to use a springform pan and two tart pans.  Press down the dough with a nice flat silicone spatula, push the sides up a tiny bit like a border.  Ladle in your cooked down plum goodness.  Sprinkle on the crumble topping.  Put into the oven at 350 - you want the cake to cook all the way through, and rise, so don't take it out too soon or you'll have soggy centers.

Tomorrow I'll take the coffee cakes and a dozen or so dark chocolate chipotle caramels, over to the East Bay Vegan Bake Sale.  11a-4p, 20 Glen Ave, Oakland (just off Piedmont)  in front of a shop called "Issues."

Plum gone!

This morning I put the rest of the plum juice into pots and made up more plum jelly - Plum Cinnamon (inspired by Barbara's story of her German cherry-cinnamon jam making friend), and Plum Ginger. And yes, cleaning up the rest of my canning projects and other last minute projects does put a delay on other plans but at least I'll feel good about things. :)

YIELD:

Plum Cinnamon Jelly

• 3 - 12 oz jars
• 5 - 8 oz jars
• 6 - 4 oz jars

Plum Ginger Jelly

• 5 - 12 oz jars
• 2 - 8 oz jars
• 4 - 4 oz jars

Plum Habanero Jelly - with a twist!

Since the Plum Serrano came out with a nice bite - I decided to put a twist on the plum habanero this year. So far - I have managed to only rub the bottom of my nose so that's the only part of me affected by habanero tinged fingertips. No bathroom breaks or ear rubbing for a while - eep!

Plum Habanero Jelly with an Orange Twist

• 10 c plum juice
• 1 c water
  
• 7 habanero chiles, seeded and quartered (but not separated to make it easier to yank'em out!)
• 1 tsp decoriated cardamom
  
• 3 Tb finely shaved/microplaned orange zest
• 1 c orange juice (squeezed from same oranges zested)
• 5 c demerara sugar (to taste)
  
• pectin (per instructions)

I'm heating the juice to get the ingredients warmed up and then am going to simmer it down about half a cup and turn off the heat to let it steep. After it cools - check the flavor - I removed the habaneros and let the orange and cardamom steep for half a day because of other errands.

Next, I strained the orange and cardamom - measured 12 cups altogether - added 1/4 c lemon juice and then brought to a slow boil. I added the sugar with pectin, walked away and the pot overboiled so I lost 1.5 c of jelly on the stove. Could be worse, I suppose ... this stuff is yummy!

YIELD:
6 - 8 oz jars plum habanero w/twist of orange & cardamom
15 - 4 oz jars plum habanero w/twist of orange & cardamom

Kitchen Notes

Given all the preserves I made in the past year, and excluding the liberal use of sucanat and molasses in chutneys and other cooking, I'm actually surprised that it took me 13 months to use 50# of unrefined cane sugar.

I'm only using 3 cups of sugar in 8 cups of plum juice for this batch of jelly (my idea of low sugar - compared to equal parts sugar & juice in most recipes). Time to go buy another 50# bag!I'm still mulling over the gustatory logistics of plum jelly for 2009 - I have completed a batch of plum serrano, and here is what I am considering for the rest of the jelly, to be done in batches of 8 cups of juice:

• POP (plain ole plum)
• plum-habanero w/orange peel (chile filtered out, fine peel left in)
• plum lavender (a popular one last year)
• plum cinnamon-clove

Any suggestions or special requests?

Plum Sauce 2009

After a bit more cooking, adding more plum puree and tinkering - I have decided that I have a satisfactory plum sauce - for 2009. Last year's has a lot more smooth gingery sweetness, but I'm not sure if that's a result of curing in the jar (it is, afterall, a bit like a chutney!).

Here's the recipe I arrived at - mind you, I added additional plum puree three times after reducing the entire pot about 1-1.5" - next year, I will reduce the vinegar by about half and might use malt or rice vinegar instead of apple cider.

• 12 c plum puree
• 3 chopped white onions
• 3 Tb finely minced garlic (use the garlic press)
• 10 Tb finely minced fresh ginger (mini-food processor)
• 3 t Chinese 5 spice
• 1 small cassia cinnamon stick
• 4-5 star anise pods (unbroken - fish them out later)
  
• 1 t salt
• 1 c apple cider vinegar
• 4 c Sucanat/brown sugar
  
• 1/4 c (wheat free) soy sauce
• 1/2 c currants

After letting it rest overnight - the flavor was pretty good - a bit more vinegary but that might change after a couple months in the jar. I pureed two big batches of it, leaving some chunks of ginger and currant for texture.

YIELD:
12 - 8 oz jars
16 - 4 oz jars

I will give this a chance before giving it all away - last year I was so sick and tired of persimmons that I gave away nearly all the persimmon chutney and three months after making it realized I had very little left and it was very very tasty! Fortunately, I still have some persimmon pulp in the freezer which will go into a persimmon cake and persimmon sorbet for an August birthday, and the rest will be a new batch of persimmon chutney. That is, after I get done with plums, apricots and the figs I plan to pick on Monday!

Plum Sauce - Smacking myself in the head!

Last year, I took the puree from the jelly bag after making plum jelly and turned it into a wonderful plum sauce. As usual, I researched several variations of recipes and threw together and adjusted as I went since none of the recipes call for plum puree, but for whole plums. The plum sauce turned out amazing - dark, smoky, sweet, spicy, salty, garlicky and a hint of ginger - better than barbeque sauce. It's even a nice dark BBQ sauce brown.

This year, I got smart in terms of the puree production and used a Kitchen Aid attachment to get all the pulp out of the skins and mush - I got quite a lot of pulp: 24 cups!

So, I started putting together the plum sauce - 8 cups of puree and 3 chopped white onions, and then started scouring my blog, bookmarks and print-outs for which plum sauce recipes I consulted. I came up with very little that indicates what inspired last year's delciousness and so far, the sauce isn't turning out quite the same. I'm simmering it down now - and I may add more plum puree and adjust it a bit more.

Here's what I have so far:

• 10 c plum puree
• 3 chopped white onions
• 3 T finely minced garlic (use the garlic press)
• 3 T finely minced fresh ginger (mini-food processor)
• 3 t Chinese 5 spice
• 1 small cassia cinnamon stick
• 4-5 star anise pods (unbroken - fish them out later)
  
• 1 t salt
• 1 c apple cider vinegar
• 2 c Sucanat
• 1/4 c (wheat free) soy sauce

Re-reading other forums and recipes, it seems like they all call for a lot more sugar and vinegar - I don't remember using so much last year. In fact, it seemed rather simple and I just wish I could dig up my recipe. I'll let it simmer for a while and then cool it down so I can taste it properly against last year's version - welcoming any advise on recipe adjustments.

Close...

I suppose it counts in canning - today I ended up with apricot infused vodka to set for a few weeks, apricot jam, plum-serrano jelly and chopped the more firm apricots into 24 cups of coarse dice for chutney (frozen).

YIELD:

• Apricot Infused Vodka - 4 half-gallon jars of apricots, pits saved from other chopped and processed apricots and vodka (two 1.75 L bottles)
• Apricot Jam - 9 8 oz jars, 1 12 oz jar
  
• Plum-Serrano Jelly 6 4 oz jars, 5 8 oz jars

Apricots & Plums

Last week, I picked 10 gallons of plums in my backyard - that resulted in 3 gallons of juice and nearly 2 gallons of puree - and I picked about 150 apricots on Wednesday. Today is going to be a big canning day. If you'd like to visit to see how I do it - drop a line here!

In priority, this week's projects will include:

• Apricot infused vodka (first because it's the easiest!)
  
• Apricot jam (plain apricot, apricot chipotle)
  
• Apricot chutney
  
• Apricot fruit leather
• Candied apricots (they can hang out on the back burner)
  
• Plum fruit leather (might be tart, though!)
  
• Plum jelly (plain plum, plum serrano, plum habanero)
  
• Plum sauce

Before I get started, I want to inventory current preserves still on the shelf. Then, Wash and prep all the jars. Next, a quick trip to BevMo to get the vodka, and then I will swing by Oakland's Chinatown to get the ginger (you can't argue with 50 cents a pound and ginger is not a highly pesticided crop, so...).

These apricots are massive - they are the size of small peaches! I put some into the dehydrator last night, so we'll see how they come out, if at all dried!

Green with Envy

GREEN GAGE PLUM JAM: The Green Gage plums are so GOOD! I finished up the jam and added as little sugar as possible because they were so sweet:

YIELD:
6 - 8 oz jars
9 - 4 oz jars

3 c. puree for sorbet

JUICER: I did test out the new juicer -- I'm not sure it's the one for me. Bits of apricot went flying off into the pulp area from the spinning knife/strainer basket that are still quite juiceable. It did a great job on lemons, though, once I cut off the peel with my knife (didn't try it with peel on).

JAM: I got the apricot-chipotle jam started, but 2 tsp of powdered roasted chipotle pepper didn't add much flavor to 4 cups of fruit, so I put a whole chipotle pepper in the warm fruit over night to soften up and flavor it.

APPLES: The apples I got on Sunday from the lovely Larissa -- same place as the plums -- are all a nice light yellow outside and when I cut them open to try them in the juicer, they are a nice red-pink inside! I have never had red flesh apples before and these are beautiful and delicious.

Zucchini Madness

ZUCCHINI FRITTERS: After perusing several recipes this afternoon, I decided to make up my own zucchini fritter recipe and it came out darned good.

4 c. grated zucchini
1/2 c. grated onion
1/4 c. grated carrot
handful chopped squash blossoms

Usual directions about salting the zucchini and leaving it set in a colander for 10-20 minutes apply. I used my potato ricer to squeeze out the juice right into a bubbling pot of veggies that I later turned into a zucchini-golden chanterelle bisque.

For the batter:

1 c. flour of your choice
2 T. baking powder
2 T. crushed black pepper
2 T. fresh, chopped thyme
2 T. fresh chopped oregano
handful of fresh chopped parsley


Add enough water until it starts to resemble a thick batter instead of a dough, then mix in the zucchini and veggies. Stir in more water until it reaches a consistency that will form nice 1/4 cup globs that you can pat flat on the frying pan with your fingers. Brown on both sides until done. Eat with some delicious Pottsfield Relish* or chutney or fresh salsa. Maybe an almond-lemon pesto.

ZUCCHINI (Golden Chanterelle) BISQUE: I had a monster zuke from the new friend who has opened her yard to my foraging for apricots, green gage plums and apples. Big zukes are good for zucchini bread, fritters and bisque.

If you did not know, a bisque is a soup that uses rice (and potatoes, sometimes) to create a nice creamy, starchy consistency. No dairy, cheese or bizarre thickeners required, I swear.

Cook up 1/4 c. of arborio rice and let sit in the hot water.

Cook over med-high heat until tender:

5 c. zucchini, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 c. carrots, chopped
2 c. fingerling potatoes, chopped

In the dutch oven, heat enough water or vegetable broth to cover the veggies (start low and add more once the veggies are done sauteeing). I added 1 packet of dry sauteed, sliced golden chanterelles and about 1 c. of golden chanterelle broth to the pot. Once the water is hot, add the rice, too - what the heck. Also added 1 T crushed black pepper. Don't add any salt yet -- remember, you added miso!

After adding the softened veggies to the pot of broth, I added about 3 T of miso, along with 1/3 c fresh parsley leaves, some fresh oregano and thyme. I let everything cook until it was very soft.

Cool the veggies and broth. Process in blender or food processor. At this point, I pulled out two more 8 oz (before dry sauteeing) baggies of chopped golden chanterelle and let them defrost in the bisque. It tastes pretty good -- I will let it cool and check the seasoning tomorrow when I heat it up. This bisque will be great to freeze in individual portions for lunch!

PLUMS: James pitted most of the plums -- I had to stop him so we'd still have some to snack! Even then, we were plucking plums out of the pot as they warmed up, these are the tastiest plums we've ever had. The plums are resting - skins and meat - I am going to strain some and just make jam out of the meat tomorrow. I think I may pull out plum skins with tongs if it is easy enough, otherwise I will just leave the in.

APPLES: Apple sauce requires a lot more peeling and paring than I think I have time this week. I now have a whole big milk crate of apple from my friend Lawrence -- when I called to check on our morning carpool he said, "I have a surprise for you - you're going to hate me!" So, I have apples from Larissa's house on Sunday - light yellow, and a crate full of tart green beauties (much bigger) from Lawrence's place in Danville. I'm thinking I should make some canned apple pie filling -- he had told me he was going to make a rum raisin apple pie, so I think I should make at least one batch of rum raisin apple pie filling. I can leave on the peels and just slice up the cored apples, cover them with the syrup/batter and hot water process them. Any other ideas on what to do with apples and limited appendages and waking hours?

APRICOTS: While the plum jam is cooking tomorrow, I may focus on the apricots since they'll go off earlier than the apples. I wish the solar dehydrator was done! Hoping my brother will finish it off on Tuesday, then I can do some dried apples!



*Recipe for Pottsfield Relish coming soon. I promise. I just opened my last jar in anticipation of a bumper tomato crop. I swear - pictures are coming soon for everything!

Easy Plum (Habanero) Jelly

PLUM JELLY can be easy or difficult -- if you don't have freestone plums, the best way I've found is to clean and cook the whole fruit.

First, wash/sterilize your jars and put them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 125 or 250, whatever makes you feel good. If you don't keep the jars hot - the boiling hot jelly may make your jars crack and break, causing a big unhappy mess.  Boiling hot jelly will sizzle in the jars kept at 125 and you won't be able to grab the jars with your hands so have pot holders ready.

Next, gather your plums and wash them really well to get off all the bird poop and bugs. Or not - it's all going to get strained anyway and you might like the protein. Cut out any bad blemishes or parts you wouldn't want to eat. Your plums should look all clean and pretty:

I never add juice to the pot for the plums -- but I squish them hard with my hands as I put them into the pot -- I use both hands and squish a small handful of plums. Once the bottom of the pan is covered, I turn on the heat on low and continue adding smashed plums to the pot. This helps the juice release more quickly.

After you've smashed up all the plums and they've filled the pot with juicy goodness, turn them into a big colander or sieve lined with 2-4 layers of cheesecloth over a big bowl or pot to collect the juice.

You can stir the plums to release more juice, or pick up the corners of the cheesecloth from time to time to give a wiggle and shake. Once you've collected all your juice, you can store it and finish it another night or put it back in a pot and start thinking about flavor accents -- like habanero or jalapeno pepper or lavender.

In this picture, you can see the jars I used to store the juice in the refrigerator - you can also freeze the plum juice if you want to make it much later or really have a lot of plums.

Adding pepper can be tricky - so you have to start with a little, bring it to a simmer for five minutes and then taste it (let it cool, first!). Add more chopped pepper if you want more heat.

Simmer a bit and then strain out all the pepper (or lavender or other herbs) and put back in the pan.

Add the lemon, sugar and pectin as instructed by your pectin manufacturer. I use Pomona's pectin - so I put the lemon juice & calcium water into the pot, and mix the pectin in with the sugar really well using a wire whisk before adding.  Then I follow the instructions for bringing back to temperature and testing for set.

Pour into hot jars and put the lids on and process in hot water bath.  Then, set the jars out to cool and wait for the sweet plink of success (some people skip hot water bath with jelly -- this isn't recommended by the folks at Ball but it's done often since the simmering jelly is hotter than boiling water anyway).

Infused and ready to go...

INFUSING: My friend Eric gave me an idea for those gorgeously scented Santa Rosa plums: infused vodka, with a liberal helping of fresh ginger. Fortunately, I picked up some ginger on sale (embarrassingly, at Safeway -- not organic but not an "at risk" food) for $1.09/lb while walking over to pick up more canning jars at Long's (talk about your $65 tomato! I spent $70 on jars yesterday and $110 on lumber for the solar dehydrator - so much for paying down the credit cards!).


I digress - I now have a half gallon mason jar full to the brim of red-purple plum and ginger vodka goodness, next to a similar jar of apricot. Seriously considering adding a ceylon cinnamon stick or a vanilla bean...

I need more lemons so I can make up an other batch of limoncello and some more lemon chutney. Dear Universe, where can I raid someone's backyard Meyer lemon tree? Even Eureka lemons would be ok...