Secrets of homemade plum preparations for the winter

Freezing plums

To fully preserve all the vitamins and texture of the berries, they should be frozen. This is the fastest and most cost-effective way of winter preparations, in which only the volume of the freezer is important. For freezing, you need to choose large, fleshy plums from which the pit can be easily removed. At a temperature of -18°C they are perfectly stored for up to a year.

In winter, you can cook compote or jelly from such a preparation. In addition, frozen berries are used to decorate homemade cakes and to prepare vitamin-rich fruit salads.

Before freezing, ripe fruits are washed, allowed to dry, cut into halves and the seeds removed.Plums are delicate berries, so before placing them in the freezer, it is better to put them not in plastic bags, but in cardboard milk bags or plastic containers. This way the plums will be less wrinkled. There is one more secret. You should defrost berries not at room temperature, but in the refrigerator. Then they won't lose their shape.

Making prunes

The beneficial properties of prunes have been familiar to us since childhood. Dried plums contain many vitamins and help the body cope with winter and spring vitamin deficiency. Prunes have 1.5 times more potassium than bananas. It is useful to eat with high blood pressure and intestinal and kidney problems.

Prunes are a completely ready-to-eat product, and many, especially in winter, include them in the daily menu. Nutritious vitamin-energy mixtures are made with prunes. It is added to compotes, sauces, pilaf, salads, meat dishes, desserts and homemade baked goods.

Large-fruited plums of the "Hungarian" variety are ideal for prunes. They contain a lot of sugar and have a bright, rich taste. Only fully ripened fruits are suitable for drying. From 4.5 kg of fresh plums you get about 1 kg of prunes.

It has long been believed that prunes are of better quality if the pit is not removed from the fruit. To dry the plums, place them in sunlight. Drying takes several days. Ready prunes should not release juice even under pressure. Good prunes are never too dry and have an elastic and soft texture.

There are other ways of drying plums, when the fruits are pre-blanched in boiling water or treated with glycerin, and the process of drying the berries is carried out in gas or electric ovens. Get to know the tips how to make prunes at home and store it correctly on our website Make it delicious!.

See the video from the Brovchenko Family: “How to dry plums and apricots in the dryer.”

Plum juice

Delicious plum juice with pulp is an excellent winter preparation. It’s not difficult to make, and even an inexperienced housewife can do it. For 2 kg of berries you will need 500 ml of boiled water and 200 g of sugar. Both ripe and overripe berries are suitable for juice. They need to be washed and pitted.

First you need to soften the plums. They do this in several ways. Firstly, the plum can be placed in water and heated to a temperature of +80°C. Then you need to wait a little for the berries to soften. Then the berries are crushed using a juicer or rubbed through a sieve by hand. Secondly, the plums will soften if you hold them over steam for about five minutes.

Add granulated sugar and water to the mashed plum and bring the mixture to a temperature of +90°C. If it seems that the juice is very thick, you need to add water. If it is not sweet enough, add granulated sugar to taste. Hot juice is poured into pre-sterilized jars and sealed. In winter, this preparation makes a very tasty jelly.

Plum marshmallow

An excellent winter preparation from plums - marshmallow. This is a tasty and high-calorie product that does not contain sugar. This marshmallow is an excellent alternative to sweets, a healthy treat for children and a balanced meal for athletes and diabetics.

Preparation of marshmallows begins by washing and pitting the plums. Then the fruits are ground in a blender until completely homogeneous. A tray for an electric dryer is covered with culinary parchment, and the plum mass is poured onto it. After this, use a spoon or wooden spatula to evenly distribute it over the entire area of ​​the parchment.The thinner the layer of plum, the faster it will dry. In an electric dryer, this process takes 7-9 hours. A well-dried plum remains soft, flexible and does not break.

When the plum layer has dried to the desired condition, it is carefully separated from the parchment, starting from the edges. Then the marshmallow is placed on the table, rolled into a tube and cut into small “rolls”. Store pieces of plum marshmallow in a hermetically sealed glass jar or container.

The video from the Good Recipes channel presents a simple recipe for making fruit marshmallows from plums and apples.

Plum jam

Plum jam is very popular among experienced housewives. This is a pleasant, filling dessert. Bread and pastries with jam are a great snack when everyone is in a hurry and there is no time to prepare something more substantial. Plum jam is also used as a filling for homemade pies and cakes.

First, the plum is washed, the seeds are removed and the berries are ground in a blender into a puree. The jam is cooked in a wide bowl with a thick bottom. The fire should not be high, and the mass must be stirred constantly.

At first it is better to boil it without adding sugar. This way the jam burns less. Then add 500 g of sugar per 1 kg of puree. When cooking, the volume of the puree should decrease by about a third. The readiness of the jam can be determined by a drop on a porcelain saucer. If it does not spread, but retains its volume, cooking can be completed.

The hot jam is placed in preheated clean jars and sealed. You can leave the jars open, covering them with cloth or gauze for 4-5 days. When a crust appears on the surface of the jam, they are covered with culinary parchment, sealed tightly and stored in a dry place.

Get the step-by-step recipe making plum jam available on our website Make it delicious!.

Pickled plum

For some reason, pickling plums is not very common in our country. Probably because we are used to making exclusively sweet preparations from berries. Completely in vain! Pickled plums are very tasty and unusual. They add a unique spicy flavor to meat dishes and are an excellent side dish for fish. A delicate, beautiful appetizer on the winter table will surprise both home and guests. And excess aromatic marinade can be used to marinate meat before stewing, baking or frying. Therefore, it’s worth trying and making several jars of this savory preparation.

Even not fully ripe berries are suitable for pickling. The main thing is that they have dense pulp. First, the plums are washed and pricked in several places with a toothpick. This is done so that the fruits do not burst when heated. Attention: we do not remove the seeds!

Then the plums are placed in pre-sterilized jars to the top, being careful not to squeeze the fruits. Place 2-3 cloves and a small piece of cinnamon in each jar. For the marinade, add 5-6 tbsp to 1.5 liters of water. l. sugar, 2-3 tbsp. l. salt and 200 ml of 9% vinegar. The boiled marinade is poured into jars with plums, covered with lids and sterilized. Half-liter - for 20-25 minutes, liter - 30-40 minutes. After this, roll up the lids, turn the jars upside down and allow them to cool, after covering them with a warm cloth or blanket.

Tkemali sauce

Not a single feast is complete without the famous sauce in Georgia. Traditionally, tkemali is made from unripe or red cherry plum. But if you don’t have cherry plums on hand, you can make a very good-tasting sauce from any sour plums.

For 1 kg of fruit you will need one large bunch of cilantro and dill, a head of garlic, 2 tsp. Khmeli-Suneli seasonings, 3 tbsp. l. granulated sugar, 1 hot pepper and salt. Place the plums in water, bring them to a boil, remove them and let them sit in hot water for a while to soften them. After this, the pits are removed from the plums and the berries are crushed with a blender into a homogeneous mass.

Finely chop the cilantro and dill. The garlic is peeled and crushed in a mortar with hot pepper and salt. Plum puree is mixed with chopped herbs and heated in a saucepan over low heat, remembering to stir. Before boiling, garlic and pepper, sugar and “khmeli-suneli” are added to the sauce. If you wish, you can also put coriander and finely chopped mint there. Tkemali is worth trying and adding more salt if necessary. If the sauce turns out to be very sour, add more granulated sugar. Tkemali is not cooked for long – only 5-7 minutes to retain more nutrients and vitamins. The hot sauce is poured into wide-necked jars and stored in the refrigerator.

Plum marmalade

When you have a sweet tooth at home, it’s worth making delicious and healthy plum marmalade. It keeps well for several months. True, if the family loves sweets, for some reason the reserves of marmalade always disappear quickly.

As with plum juice, the fruits must first be softened. Then remove the seeds from them and process them in a blender into a homogeneous puree. For 1 kg of plum mass you will need 0.5 kg of granulated sugar. Boil the marmalade in a bowl with a thick bottom, stirring the mass with a wooden spatula so that it does not burn. The fire should be small!

First, the plum mass is boiled without adding granulated sugar.When it has reduced by about half, the marmalade is ready! It is laid out on trays lined with culinary parchment or in special forms, and allowed to cool and dry slightly. After this, the marmalade can be given any size by cutting it into slices with a knife or culinary molds. Pieces of delicacy are sprinkled with granulated sugar and stored in cardboard boxes or glass jars at room temperature.

Compote of plums with pits

For a tasty drink, you need to choose ripe or slightly unripe plums. Overripe berries are not suitable for making compote! The plums are washed, pierced in 1-2 places with a toothpick, and liter jars are filled a third with them. Then boiling water is poured into the jars to the top, covered with lids, wrapped in a blanket and allowed to cool for several hours.

Then the water is drained from the cans, and 2 tbsp is placed in the drain. l. granulated sugar per 1 liter jar. The water is boiled a second time and poured into jars with plums to the very top. Then the jars are sealed with lids, turned over and allowed to cool under a blanket.