One of my
favorite poems is by William Carlos Williams. It’s about plums (!).
But it’s also about apologizing without actually apologizing. It’s
about seduction. And it's called "This is Just to Say."
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were
delicious
so sweet
and so cold
A role the plum
was born to play. I only wish prunes could get that level of respect.
Prunes get nose wrinkling and Senokot®. I hate that.
And—while we’re at it—the rebranding of prunes as “dried plums” a few
years back was really offensive. Makes me feel like a stone fruit
evangelist. (It’s also what inspired the title of this very blog.)
Anyway, these
stains have only deepened my love. I am a champion for plums. Even
the wrinkly ones.
They possess a
poetic balance of sweetness and acid, delivered in an array of shades and
shapes. Which makes them perfect for dessert. Take Ina Garten’s plum tart. It partners with rosemary or thyme like a dream. It’s easy and delivers, every time. I still have my sights set on Jess’s yeasted plum cake, too. And if you are looking to stray
in a savory direction, I strongly suggest the caramel duck fat potatoes with prunes, from Jerusalem. It operates on another plane altogether. A
crispy, salty, sweet one.
But now, ladies
and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce early plum frozen yogurt.
It pushes all the
buttons you want a summer dessert to push. It's refreshing, freckled with
vanilla beans, layered with tart plum bits, and delicately sweetened. I
used deep purple plums with canary yellow flesh, which birthed a ballet
slipper-colored base dissected with bright pink fleshy swirls.
You could call it an imitation
of the actual fruit, whose sweet skin plus tart pulp offers much more than
its separated parts. The yogurt rejoins these parts with its plum ribbon running through it. It also
has that gutsy chew that is so wonderfully characteristic of Jeni’s Splendid recipes.
All this just to say
the yogurt was delicious. So sweet. And so cold.
Early Plum Frozen
Yogurt
Inspired by
Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home, by Jeni Britton Bauer
Ingredients:
for the frozen yogurt base
1 quart plain low
fat yogurt
1½ cups whole
milk
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 ounces (4 tbsp) cream
cheese, softened
½ cup heavy cream
2/3 cup sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
1 vanilla bean pod, split, seeds and pod reserved
for the plum swirl and plum syrup
2 limes, 1 zested
and both juiced
4 black plums,
each sliced into 6 wedges
1/3 cup demerara
sugar
pinch of salt
splash of
rosewater
Instructions:
Day 1:
Over a large bowl, fit a
sieve or colander double-lined with cheesecloth. Pour yogurt into the lined bowl to drain; cover with plastic
wrap and refrigerate overnight (6 to 8 hours).
In a medium saucepan, place
lime juice, zest, plums, demerara sugar, and pinch of salt and heat on medium,
stirring occasionally, and gently.
Once the plums’ skins start
to separate from the flesh, remove enough slices from pan to make 1 heaping cup
and place in a small bowl. (The
plums should be slightly softened, but not falling apart; it is okay to do this
a few pieces at a time, as not all the plums will lose their skins at once. The
plums yellow flesh should turn bright pink from being cooked with their skins.)
Cook the remaining plums
and their liquid down until thick (about 20 minutes); using a small sieve,
strain out the skins, pressing down to extract all the juice. You should have just over ½ cup plum
liquid; add in the rosewater.
Place in a small container.
Cover and refrigerate both the plum halves and plum liquid.
Day 2:
Discard the liquid from the
strained yogurt; measure out 1¼ cups of yogurt and set aside. (Use the small
amount of leftover yogurt for another use.) In a small bowl, whisk 3 tbsp of the milk with the
cornstarch to make a slurry. Whisk
the cream cheese in a separate small bowl until smooth. In a medium saucepan, combine the remaining
milk, cream, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla bean (pod and seeds) over medium
heat; boil 4 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching.
Remove the milk mixture
from the heat, discard the vanilla bean pod, whisk in the cornstarch slurry,
and return the liquid to medium heat until it thickens slightly, about a minute or two. Whisk a little of the hot mixture into
the cream cheese, enough so that it becomes smooth, then whisk into the
saucepan with the remaining milk. Remove
from heat; whisk in the yogurt and reserved plum liquid.
Set a medium-sized metal
bowl over a larger bowl filled with ice.
Set a strainer on top and pour the liquid through to remove any unseemly
bits. Let cool; cover and
refrigerate the base overnight.
Day 3:
Churn the base in a frozen
ice cream canister for 20 to 25 minutes, until the base pulls away from the
sides of the canister, forming ribbons.
While the yogurt is churning, cut up the reserved plum halves into bite-sized
pieces. Spoon a little of the base
into a freezer safe-container and then layer with plum bits; repeat layering
until both the plums and base are all used up, ending with the base.
Place a piece of parchment paper, cut to fit the container, over the top of the yogurt; seal and freeze at least 4
hours before serving.
Makes about a quart
Notes:
-This is a hard frozen
yogurt; you’ll want to take it out a few minutes to soften before scooping.
-I suspect if you use plums with dark flesh, the result will be a darker shade.
-We are a tad premature for
plum season right now in Massachusetts.
I had very good luck with some local supermarket fruit. I think nectarines would be lovely here
too.
-I can never get my act
together enough to let the cream cheese soften ahead of time, so I usually stick it in the
microwave for a few seconds. It does wonders.
