Individual greengage jellies

When I was little I had a picture book called 'The Delicious Plums of King Oscar the Bad' which was about a greedy king who had an orchard of plum trees and would never give anyone else any. From this I worked out that plums must be pretty awesome.

Possibly the most awesome of all plums is the greengage, and that's what this jelly is made from.

I only knew about greengages from King Oscar, and also from my Mum, who used to talk wistfully of having them back in England when she was growing up.




You never saw them in the shops in Melbourne so it was only when I moved to Tasmania as an adult that I discovered them.

I guess that they are not very attractive to the big supermarket chains because although they taste incredibly sweet, they don't keep very well and are soft enough to crush easily.


The googlemonster tells me that their name comes from Sir WIlliam Gage who brought them from France to England in 1724.

The label fell off the box he shipped the trees home in, so he introduced naming rights (he must have done that a bit because there are also plum varieties called purple and yellow gages).
In France they are called Reine Claude or La Bonne Reine (the good queen).

So back to the jelly. I started with about 600g of fruit in a small saucepan on a low heat just to warm it up and get the juices to come out. I added the juice of one lemon to it because the plums were so sweet, but in retrospect this was a mistake and made it too tart.

When it was soft I pushed it through a sieve and combined it with some gelatine (if you haven't worked with gelatine before, refer instructions below).

In the meantime I hunted through my new box of pastry equipment (thanks, downsizing Mum!) and found some mini jelly moulds. Yay!

I wasn't quite sure how to prepare the moulds so I consulted Nigella, who informed me that I should brush them with some vegetable oil.

I then put some halved greengages in the bottom of the moulds because I thought that would be pretty, but as you can see from the pic at the top, the jelly is too dark to really see them :-( This is one difference with home made fruit jellies compared to commercial ones, they have real substance and colour, so they tend not to be as clear as packet jellies.

So then I ladled the jelly mixture into the moulds while it was still warm and left them to set in the fridge for a couple of hours.

When they were firm to the touch, I unmoulded them by dipping the mould quickly into hot water, then reversing it onto a plate.

I think I held them in the hot water too long because I got a small puddle of 'juice' at the base when the jellies were unmoulded. So be sure to do the 'hot water dip' for no more than a few seconds.

This pic on the right does look somewhat radioactive but apart from showing that I'm addicted to photoshop it also shows the shininess of the jelly and the colour variations in it.The darkness on the top of the jelly is the half greengage set into the jelly.

The taste of the jelly was not perfect. It was too tart (refer lemon juice comment above). I didn't add any sugar because I thought the sweetness of the greengages would be enough. And it was almost, but not quite, enough. The texture was good though: firm but not rubbery. I HATE rubbery jelly.

All in all, for someone who is not used to working with gelatine it was a good experiment.







Greengage Jellies

600g fresh greengages, ripe if possible
sugar, if desired
1 sachet or 10g powdered gelatine
4 tbsp cold water
vegetable oil for brushing moulds - use a mild-tasting one like sunflower or canola

Halve and stone the greengages and place them in a small saucepan on a low heat until they are soft. Stir and crush the fruit with a wooden spoon. If you want a sweeter jelly, add a few spoonsful of sugar at this point and let it dissolve.
When the fruit has disintegrated, push it through a sieve. Discard the pulp (the bit that's left in the sieve). Set the juice/syrup aside. You should have about 500g of syrup. If you have more, or less, adjust your quantity of gelatine accordingly (10g of gelatine will set 500g of liquid).
Put the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatine onto it, leaving it to 'sponge up' for a few minutes (it expands and appears spongy). Then place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water for a few minutes to heat up the gelatine-water mixture, stirring so that the gelatine dissolves.
Take the bowl off the heat and add a ladleful of your fruit syrup to it, making sure that the syrup is still warm (if it's not, place the bowl of syrup over the simmering water for a few minutes to warm it up). Make sure the gelatine is incorporating smoothly into the syrup. Add the rest of the syrup to the gelatine and stir to combine.
Brush the moulds with a very small amount of vegetable oil and ladle or pour the mixture into the moulds. Set the moulds on a flat tray and place in the fridge to set for at least two hours.

To unmould: fill a bowl with hot water from the tap. Hold the mould by its rim and immerse it into the hot water up to the rim for a few seconds, then immediately reverse it onto a plate. If the jelly doesn't want to come out, hold the mould onto the plate and give it a sharp shake downwards, or tap the top of the mould with a spoon. If it still won'r come out, dip the mould in hot water again.

Serve with pouring cream.
Enjoy!