I’ve been kindly allowed to join in “The Mum & The Chef“, a group of bloggers who have got together, pick an ingredient and make it into something delicious. “The Mum” is Mish Lilly of Mish Delish fame and “The Chef” is Katrina Higham of the Windsor Deli in Windsor, Melbourne, Victoria. I’m yet to get to know who all the other participants of this challenge are but will list their blogs at the end of this post.

The cut glass bowl I’ve photographed the plums in was my Nanna’s. I’ve inherited a lot of her lovely things. As you can see on the below photo, it still has a small piece of ribbon which she glued on and wrote “W.P.”, which was my grandfather’s initials. I guess, in those days, everything belonged to the ‘man of the house’.

This month’s challenge is plums. I’ve got to say, as much as I would’ve loved to create something totally out of the ordinary and a real test of my skills, I have to be practical and come up with something that I know my family of 2 adults and 2 children will eat (a girl aged 6 who is the fussiest eater in the world and a son aged 4 who will eat just about anything). I also like to be frugal in everything I cook and not go to too much expense when buying ingredients, rather using up what I have already stocked in the pantry. I’d rather spend my money on quality rather than quantity. I had to buy plums but because they were in season, were reasonably priced.

I decided to try my hand at my Nanna’s Fruit Plait. Besides having freshly baked scones coming out of the oven when we visited my Nanna, she always made this beautiful fruit plait. A basic soft, sweet, shortcrust pastry filled with prunes, apples, sultanas or whatever fruit she had on hand. I loved the peach one the best.

One of the best gifts I’ve ever received from anyone was an exercise book of my Nanna’s favourite baking recipes. She hand wrote all her favourite recipes and gave it to me for Christmas one year. My poor Nanna has been http://cosm.co.nz/community/profile/paulsen deceased for over 10 years now but I refer to this book all the time for her classics like Jam Drops, Ginger Nuts, puddings and other sweet treats.  She even drew diagrams of how to plait the pastry.

So this is her fruit plait, filled with plums, drizzled with icing and sprinkled with chopped macadamia nuts. Not overly difficult or challenging but it’s something I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to trying and a good way to use up seasonal plums. I probably could’ve rolled my pastry thinner and made the ‘plaiting’ pieces longer but I’ll know next time. It tasted delicious anyway.

Plum & Macadamia Pastry Braid

4oz (125gm) butter
11oz (350gm approx) Self Raising flour
4oz (125gm) sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup milk

Filling:
4 large plums (I chose less ripe, firm Tegan Blue plums)
3 tbs water
3 tbs brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Icing:
4 tbs icing sugar
1 tbs boiling water
chopped nuts to sprinkle on top (I chose macadamias but flaked almonds are just as nice)

Halve plums, remove stone with a teaspoon and cut again into quarters. (I like my fruit filled sweet treats chunky.) Add water, brown sugar and cinnamon. Allow plums to soften slightly over medium heat and until sugar has dissolved. Allow to cool before using.

Sift flour and salt, add butter and rub butter into flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add sugar. Add beaten egg and milk. Mix until a firm dough forms. (You may need to add more flour, as I did.) Knead slightly until pastry is smooth.

Roll out dough on a floured surface to a rectangular shape (approx 20x25cm), trim ends to form rectangle shape. Add fruit to the centre of the dough. Cut strips approx 1.5cm wide on the diagonal on either side of the fruit. Wrap each strip over the fruit, forming a plait pattern. Bake for approx 30 mins in a 180 deg C oven.

Serve warm as is for afternoon tea, warm with custard and/or ice cream for dessert or just dig in, as I did, as soon as it came out of the oven! I hope I did my Nanna proud.

Thanks Katrina for allowing me to join in. Can’t wait for the next challenge!

“The Mum & The Chef” participants: