Much cookery

I acquired some more ground-plums (the windfall plums that one picks up from the ground; it beggars belief for me that the general public will happily strip the blackberries from alongside the path before they are properly ready, so that nobody gets to enjoy them properly, and yet is prepared to let ripe plums that fall onto that same path rot, get trodden into the ground, and otherwise go to waste, either because they don't know what they are or because they are terrified of 'dirt') and some windfall apples, and had to spend the evening cooking in order to combat the swarm of fruit-flies that were staggering around the kitchen. (The flies were already there but made a bee-line for any slightly damaged fruit!)

I ended up making a German plum cake (not terribly successful with these small wild plums, as the stones cling to the flesh and they cannot be halved -- in the end I just squeezed most of the stones out of the skins), a plum and apple crumble, and a sponge cake (unrelated), while peeling and chopping the remaining apples to put in the freezer as an emergency measure. It's just as well that I failed to pick any elderberries this year, although rather a shame...


These are the yellow plums from one of the other trees, which may be mirabelles -- but the red plums are the same size. It's because they are so small that they are able to fall from the tree without significant damage; commercial plums would split open after dropping from that height.