Spiced plum compote

You’re either going to love me or hate me for saying this but things are starting to turn Christmassy!! I’ve been out walking in the freezing cold round all the Christmas decorations in Edinburgh, the continental market and Christmas fairground are getting put up, and I’ve watched Love Actually! The Christmas spirit is starting to show in my cooking…and no I don’t mean gin….but rather lashings of cinnamon infused comfort food that makes the flat smell amazingly festive!

Today’s kitchen exploits were aimed to use some plums which were just starting to get past their best. I didn’t want to default straight to a crumble as I usually would, so decided to make something a little lighter.

I used:

• plums, stoned and cut into quarters – I had about 600g
• sugar – about 125g
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp mixed spice
• 1 lemon – peel and juice

Really easy – just throw everything into the pan (I cut strips of the lemon peel rather than finely zesting so that I could take the strips out at the end) and simmer for about 15 minutes until the fruit is soft but still just holding its shape and a lovely dark syrup has bubbled up. Don’t stir too much while this is cooking unless you want the fruit to break up, but I wanted most of the pieces of plum to stay whole.

Not sure whether this is technically a compote as I would usually expect them to be a bit smoother in texture, and it’s certainly not a jam as you don’t want it to set that much, but compote sounded fancier than “stewed plums” which was the other option!!!

I had some of these warm straight after they cooked, and had some cold with yoghurt for breakfast today and they worked equally well both ways. The syrup would also be amazing added to something fizzy to make a Christmas bellini-type cocktail!

Now I really should think about starting that Christmas shopping….