Most gardeners will know what I mean when I say that fruit trees crop in cycles. Some seasons there will be an over-abundance of fruit and other seasons very little. The unpredictable nature of fruit crops causes even more difficulties for the commercial fruit grower.
A neighbour at McLaren Flat grows magnificent purple prune plums for the export market, but a few years ago in a year of abundance he had more fruit than the market could absorb and asked me whether I could make some jam. He had in mind the type of plum jam which is tradionally made in Poland and other Eastern European countries.
However, the plums were on the point of deterioration when he brought them to me, and I either had to consider discarding them or risking the other ingredients and attempting to make a saleable product.
I thought long and hard about how I could salvage the large number of trays of these beautiful purple prunes and then I remembered that I had previously been successful in soaking dried prunes in Marsala, and how delicious they had tasted.
Prune and Marsala was born as a flavour. It was a rich, dark jam but required some citric acid to balance out the sugars. For those who like prunes, here is another rich flavoured preserve.
See the recipe in the Recipe category.
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