[Sca-cooks] Round one - Plum Butter

[Susan Fox]

My suggestion is NO WATER. 

I use plum puree and sugar in equal amounts and it comes out lovely.  
Occasionally a scant shake of ground cloves.

Selene

ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:
> I started looking at this recipe from translating the word "Latwergen" which means a spiced fruit syrup or puree.    The word is related to "electuary", a medicinal paste mixed with jam or syrup for oral consumption. 
>
> Rumpolt calls this Plum Confect, but the recipe calls for cherries.  It could be a typo, but I used plums, which were cheaper.  Plums that you cook down and keep in a jar sounds like plum butter to me. I found a very similar modern recipe and changed the spices to the ones called in Rumpolt.
>
> The recipe is called a Confect, but the ones after is say "Du magst auch wohl ein solche Latwerge machen von Hollunderbeer" "You might also make such a Latwerge from elderberries", or  from sloes, or apples.
>
> There is another reference to Latwergen in Von Spicen, that is a candy that you roll out and cut into pieces.
> http://www.advancenet.net/jscole/maidens.htm
>
>
> I cut the plums in half, removed the stone, and cooked the plums until soft.   I thought the texture would be better without the skins, so I peeled them, processed in the food processor.  There were still visible pieces of skin, so I ran it though a sieve.  A food mill would be even better but it only took half an hour to peel and puree the plums.   It looked pretty much like pink applesauce.
>
> So far so good.  But I had added too much water, I was afraid it would boil off and burn, but I think it would have been fine.  The puree tasted good but was very thin.  And it filled the slow cooker to the top.  I let it cook down until there was room to add the sugar and it was back to the top.
>
> It was still very thin.  By now it had been cooking 24 hours, and tasted decidedly like prunes... not quite what I intended.  And was still pretty thin.
>
> So it cooked some more, just an inch down from the top.  Now it was still quite thin, but down right black... and tasted like burned prunes.  Yechhh.
>
> I washed it down the drain and will try again tomorrow with a new batch of plums.  I'm going to set up a steamer, I think, and no added water at all.  And try a slow oven to reduce the puree.  I don't think the slow cooker had enough surface area.  I may even get a food mill, which is what this recipe really needs.  Any other suggestions?
>
> Ranvaig