A cinnamon spiced plum compote. A perfect sauce to accompany your desserts, a topping for ice cream or a fun addition to yoghurt! Four ingredients, versatile and super easy.
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Ingredient Notes
This is an easy four ingredient recipe. All you need is:
- Plums, pitted and roughly chopped - you'll need about 4 medium or 5 small, ripe plums.
- Fresh orange juice - you can squeeze this fresh, using about half an orange, or use good quality fresh, not from concentrate, orange juice.
- Light brown sugar - I like to use firmly packed muscovado sugar for the molasses-like flavour.
- Cinnamon - just a bit of ground cinnamon for a light spicing at the end!
How to Make Spiced Plum Dessert Sauce
As with other compotes and fruit sauce recipes, this is a one-pot recipe.
You will want to begin by placing your chopped plums, orange juice and brown sugar in a deep sided saucepan (image 1 below). It is important that this is deep sided because the boiling sauce will bubble up. The deeper the sides, the less messy later!
Cook this mixture over a medium-low heat, stirring as the plums begin to release their juices and the sugar dissolves.
Once the sugar has dissolved, raise the heat to medium and allow the mixture to come to a boil. Continue to stir and mash the plums a bit with your spatula. Let this mixture continue boiling for about 10 minutes (image 2 below).
Unlike jams, this plum sauce does not need to reach a certain temperature as it is not intended to set.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool (image 3 below).
You can serve this sweet plum sauce either warm or cool.
Expert Tips
- Using ripe fruit is important in this sauce as it is in most jams. This is because a well ripened fruit will release more juices and will break down more easily. You'll find under-ripened plums may be a bit harder and less willing to cook down into a nice compote (or at least it will take longer to get them there!).
- Be sure that you use a deep sided saucepan. This will avoid making a mess with the boiling sauce.
- Decanting the hot sauce into a heat proof bowl will help to cool this more quickly than leaving it in the saucepan. This also protects against the residual heat of the pan accidentally burning the bottom of your compote.
Serving Ideas
You can use this plum sauce warm or cool alongside many different desserts. Maybe try:
- Spiced plum sauce on ice cream or with yogurt.
- Make a spiced plum panna cotta. Simply substitute this plum compote in place of my cherry bourbon sauce in my Cherry Panna Cotta Recipe.
- Serve alongside Angel Food Cake with some whipped cream. Or, for a decadent chocolate treat, serve with Devil's Food Cake.
- Add to other cakes as a filling with vanilla buttercream.
Variations
This recipe has a lot of opportunity for alternatives. Here are a few easy options to make this plum sauce your own:
- Try different spices - this is a cinnamon spiced plum sauce for desserts. But, many other spices go brilliantly with plum! Try a touch of nutmeg or ginger, to bring out added warmth or a bit of a bite. These can be added to suite your tastebuds, just add sparingly and taste as you go to check!
- Types of sugar - I use light brown sugar here, which gives a light molasses warmth to the recipe. A dark brown sugar will deepen this flavour more whereas a granulated sugar won't have this. You can play around with any of these (or a combination) to create a sauce you love!
- Plum varieties - depending on where you are in the world, there will be different plums available in different seasons. These will all give a slightly different quality to your sauce, as will whether these are well ripened or not. You can opt to make a sweeter or sharper sauce with different types of plums.
- Orange juice versus lemon juice - I like pairing plum with orange, but you can use lemon in this recipe. It won't dramatically impact the flavour, but may be a bit more tart.
FAQs for Spiced Plum Sauce
This sauce should be kept in the refrigerator once cool. It can be stored either in a bowl covered in cling film or in another airtight container such as a jar.
As with other compotes and fruit sauces, this can last for several days, refrigerated and is a great make ahead recipe if you are needing to prepare in advance.
Yes, you can use frozen fruit in sauces and compotes. For best and most flavorful results, fresh is best. For using frozen fruit, defrost this first and drain off excess water.
You can also use tinned plums, but take care to drain these. You will also want to adjust the sugar dependent on the sweetness of the jarred plums and what these were preserved in (water, juices, etc.).
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Spiced Plum Compote
Ingredients
- 5 plums, stones removed and roughly chopped
- 2 tablespoon fresh orange juice
- ¼ cup light brown muscovado sugar, packed
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Place the chopped plums, sugar and orange juice in a deep sided saucepan over a medium low heat. Stir occasionally until the sugar dissolves.
- Once the sugar has dissolved, raise the heat slightly and cook over a medium temperature until the mixture boils, stirring and mashing the plums as they release their juices.
- Continue boiling for about 10 minutes, then remove from the heat, add the cinnamon and stir through.
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