Plum Butter

Plum Butter

Ingredients
  • Plums
  • Sugar
  • Cinnamon
  • Nutmeg
  • Cloves
The native plums of the northern plains, Prunus americana, have fine, delicate flesh that makes a wonderful plum butter. Eat this on a hearty, nutty bread. It also makes a great filling for kolaches. I like butter and plum butter in the cavity of a roasted squash.

Or here's a deal. If you're planning to grill some pork chops, mix some plum butter with a dollop of mustard. Season the chops however you like, and then while you grill them, baste them with the plum-butter-and-mustard.

Or another deal. You can make a great barbeque sauce by combining plum butter with chile in some fashion. Our way is to mix plum butter with Mama Lupe's Chile con Queso Sauce (manufactured in Moundridge, Kansas).

  1. Heat the plums in lots to fit your colander, heating them with just a little water, stirring them up now and then, until about half of them burst.

  2. Press them through the colander, and be a little gentle with the pestle. The skins are bitter, and you don't want to rub that bitterness through.

  3. Mix the plum pulp with sugar--amount about equal to the plum pulp, as native plums are tart.

  4. Season to taste with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, all the above, or whatever suits you.

  5. Simmer either in a pot over low heat or in a crock pot. It should turn brown and develop the proper butter consistency. In a crock pot this will take all day at least.