A Weekend of Plums

So, here we are at the end of the summer.  It's Labor Day weekend, and as a child, I used to pretty much hate this holiday.  It was hard to find any joy or frivolity in it at all, because, although it was certainly an extended weekend, school had already started and I'd be returning there the following Tuesday.  It was always difficult to approach Labor Day with the reckless abandon I'd jump into the 4th of July with.  Or any other holiday, really.  Labor Day to me was always a holiday that fell at the wrong time.


This, my friends, is one of the things I most love about being an adult.  Time sort of shifts, and months and occasions take on newer meaning since you aren't attached to a school timetable.  This Labor Day weekend of 2010 (how are we so far into the year already, I beg of you to tell me?) has been beautiful in Cleveland.  Chilly, perhaps, and brisk, which is a bright contrast to what I always associate with Labor Day: oppressive heat and humidity.  I think we got those two weather adjectives out of the way last week.  It routinely hit 90 degrees and going outside after noon was widely-regarded as foolhardy.  Now it's breezy and fall-like, and I'm wearing jeans for the first time in months, as opposed to skirts, dresses and capris.  Lovely!

To celebrate the end of summer, on Friday I decided to make some more jam.  I've already detailed here how I make jam, in this case, peach.  I decided to make another batch because summer fruit season is rapidly coming to an end.  I know I've talked about this before, but canning is funny because you're doing it in the heat of summer when you really can't stand to be over a pot of boiling fruit, or faffing around with piping hot glass jars.  In the cooler months of fall, when you would love to be inside messing around in your kitchen, it's too late.  You absolutely need to capture fruit at its freshest and most natural peak.


So, determined to seize the day, I made another round of peach jam.  There is nothing better than a late summer peach, in my book.  This batch of jam is exclusively for my pantry, where it will sit in cool oblivion throughout the fall, winter and spring, until I reach in and grab a new jar to top yogurt with, add to a Peanut Butter and jelly sandwich (thus elevating the kindergarten classic to a gourmet lunch) or use as a topping on ice cream.  


After making the peach jam, I set out to do some random shopping.  I went to Costco, which is dangerous.  My love for Costco runs way deeper than it probably should.  While there, I spotted a lovely, 4-lb box of...what else...Plums.  Immediately I recalled seeing a recipe for Plum Jam on my pectin recipe insert.  On a whim, I bought them.  So, for the second time that day, I made jam.  This time of the plum variety.

Pretend like, for once, this blogging program didn't switch my photos around from landscape to portrait.  Just imagine that, even though it's incredibly far-fetched and nearly impossible to visualize.  Ha! Anyway, here are the lovely plums.

Plum jam, to me, is genius.  The plums are soft enough to slice that they aren't a pain to prepare.  The only difference with other jams is that you have to simmer them for 5 minutes with water before you start making the jam.  AND this recipe yields a whopping NINE half-pint jars! Woot Woot!


Plums factored into my weekend again, when I had to think of a nice dessert to take to Nicole's house for a cookout on Sunday.  I briefly entertained the idea of making a cranberry white layer cake, the recipe I found and fell in love with in the current issue of Midwest Living, but I decided that would be a bit much for Labor Day.  As fall-like as it is right now, it's still early September and there will be plenty of other chances to eat cranberries and layer cakes up until Christmas!  I decided to use my favorite everyday cake, which I've also blogged about here in my Random Recipe buttermilk selection.  I got this cake from the fabulous Smitten Kitchen blog, and it's perfect.  I've used raspberries, blueberries and strawberries in it.  It's a light, moist easy cake that isn't fussy but tastes absolutely fantastic.  It reminds me of something you'd eat on a farm...on a nice plate of china overlooking the fields. (hey, don't get snippy with me about making far-reaching overtures about food...my grandparents actually DID have a farm in upstate New York, and some of my favorite memories as a child were eating food by the big bay window in the kitchen, which overlooked the corn fields and the horse track.  And then my siblings and cousins and I would go tear around the fields, getting into various forms of mischief and burning off all those calories.  Bliss!)


Anyway, even though I made 9 half-pints of plum jam, believe it or not, I still had several leftover plums.  Another plus to canning: you use a small amount to create a huge amount.  So, this time I decided to make the Buttermilk Cake with plums!  On that topic, you must check out a link to a plum cake on Smitten Kitchen.  I toyed around with the idea of making this one, but I don't have the right cake pan, and I really had a craving for this first cake.  She talks in a lovely manner about Plums and how they signify the end of summer and the beginning of fall.  Read about it, and make the plum cake yourself!, right here.  

How pretty is this?? Here is the plum version of the Buttermilk Cake.  This is just one plum that I sliced and arranged on top of the batter.  From this point onward, you sprinkle the whole cake with a tablespoon (or more) of sugar and then bake it.  The great thing about this cake is that the batter comes up over the fruit and bakes over it.  So you end up having a lovely surprise of fruit in the middle.  Like in this next photo...

Ta Da! Here is the finished Plum Buttermilk Cake.  Note that the batter came up over the plums and baked them right into the cake....yummy.  I hope this version tastes just as fabulous as the berry ones I've made, but I guess I'll find out at Nicole's tonight!