Plum Cheese Making

I've read alot about making fruit cheeses, to eat with proper cheese. So thought I would have a go. According to my book Reader's Digest Food from your Garden, you use the softened plums which your have left from making jelly. I froze these plums last year with a view to doing exactly this.

I had nearly 3lb of plums, to which I added 6fl oz of water and left to simmer until very soft.

this took 3/4 qtrs of an hour.

Then you have to push the pulp through a medium sieve, I do have a sieve, no idea whether its medium or not, but having used a masher they were softer than I thought.

So I moved onto a sieve, I shouldn't have doubted Reader's Digest, they have been doing it for far longer than me.

After pushing half of theplums through the sieve, I transfered to a bigger bowl, which I should have used in the first place!

I ended up with 2 pints of juice, to which you add 1lb of sugar for each pint of juice, plus a squeeze of lemon.

Bring to the boil and stir.

I made notes as I went along, for future reference. That way I could see where I went wrong or perhaps what I did right.

This stage of simmering and stiring took a further 45 minutes. Its finished when you can drawer a line along the bottom with a wooden spoon.

Now comes the potting up into jars and ramekins. I think the idea of using ramekins is that you can turn them out. I'm too much of a chicken to try that. It does seem to be set but I don't want to end up with a blob on the plate. So I've frozen one of the ramekins and we will eat the other one first.

The others are in jars so will be fine for ages.