These California Sugar Plums showed up at our market, like a little gift at the end of summer. They are so sweet and lovely that the first bunch I bought were gobbled up, pure and simple. I returned and bought two more quarts of them with the intention of roasting them. Their flavor is so wonderful and the sugars so developed they didn’t need much adornment. When you cut into the plums the flesh is slightly green, and against the purple skin it is really quite beautiful. I left the skins on, as I am apt to do, but this time I’ll admit that the skins, although pretty, were a little too tough. I was afraid that as the flesh baked the skins would remain too firm.
Well I never got far enough to find out. My oven exploded while I was preheating it. Yes, exploded!
My son and I were in the kitchen, when all the sudden I heard a loud bang and saw sparks flying around the inside of the oven. I turned it off and stayed close by, holding my fire extinguisher, just in case. My neighbor’s house recently burned down from faulty electrical wiring, so I am always prepared and perhaps over cautious. It was quite a scene. Once the oven cooled down enough I opened the door to find that the electrical heating element had combusted (see the picture below). The sparks were caused by it melting onto the metal plate above. It was a dusty, soot filled mess and my oven out of commission. I’ve only had the oven for a year, although it has been a very, very busy year for it. I still don’t think it should have blown up!? Have you ever heard of such a thing?
So there are my plums all ready to go into the oven and now there isn’t one.
One of my favorite flavor combinations is sugar plums with fresh ginger. The intense sweet with a bite. I had combined a little brown sugar with freshly grated ginger and some orange zest. Tossed it all together and now it had to just sit. I wrapped it up and threw it all in the refrigerator. Here’s the recipe:
Sugar Plums With Fresh Ginger Recipe
Find the full recipe for the roasted variety below, or read on to learn how to serve a simple and delicious chilled version.
Preheat the oven to 350° (and hope it doesn’t blow up!) and place the cut plums in a baking dish.
Combine the sugar, ginger and orange zest with your fingers until combined.
Sprinkle it over the plums. At this point I would have baked them, with no cover for about an hour, tossing them in the sugar after about 30 minutes and returning them to the oven.
Instead they sat in the refrigerator over night. I opened the refrigerator this morning and tasted one of the plums. To my very pleasant surprise I’d fallen into an even better and more simple way to prepare them. The sugar had melted and the ginger, because it wasn’t heated still had all of its intense and glorious zing. Although I suspect roasting them will be wonderful as well, for now I am thrilled with the fruit that has marinated in the sugar and spices.
We ate the sugar plums with fresh ginger over whole milk plain yogurt for breakfast, but over vanilla ice cream would be a fabulous dessert!
A pastry chef without an oven. Breathe Zoe, breathe! It can be fixed, no one was hurt and I’ll be back in action on Monday.
Ingredients
- 8 small sugar plums, quartered with or without skins
- ⅓ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp freshly grated ginger I used a Microplane Fine Grater
- ¼ tsp orange zest
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°and place the cut plums in a baking dish.
- Combine the sugar, ginger and orange zest with your fingers until combined.
- Sprinkle mixture over the plums. Bake with no cover for about an hour, tossing them in the sugar about halfway through.
This happened day 2 into my new oven and Home Depot would not refund us!!
Hi Natali,
My husband ordered a new heating element and installed it, but ours was a year old. I would think yours is still under warrantee. Seems odd that Home Depot won’t help you fix it, especially since it was two days old. I would contact the manufacturer. If they don’t respond, I’d put the word out on Twitter and find out if anyone else is having this issue and how they resolved it.
BTW – the oven worked great with the new heating element. That oven was great, but the next time I was in the market, I went with a Bosch.
Good luck! Zoë
Glad to find your site – not only am I in love with the plums – my oven exploded yesterday while I was doing a roast beest dinner to treat my husband who has been quite ill – the sound like a freight train, the red explosion, the frightened to death dog…all components were there. The stove is about 10 years old (a top of the line Jenn Air electric)thank God the wiring in the house has been updated (the house was built in 1929) so the circut breaker flipped and took the stove down – now all I have to do is wait forever to get someone out here to replace the element -I am 63 years old and have cooked and baked for years and years and years in three countries on every kind of cheap, expensive, medium stove and have never had this happen – what is going on????