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Whilst browsing Epicurious this week I came across this rather interesting sounding recipe and promptly decided to make it. Curiously, the recipe was actually created to serve two portions, something which is rather rare these days.
I must confess that (to the best of my recollection) I’ve never eaten a fresh plum, or indeed cooked with them. So, this was new territory for me… After making the syrup, I carefully cut around the centre of the plums (following the natural line/crease) and then twisted them apart. Astonishingly, they both came apart cleanly and all I had to do was flick the stones out before slicing. I sneaked a couple of slices and they were actually quite tasty. Who knows, I may start snacking on them!
The mousse is ridiculously simple to make. Just whisk together some cream cheese (I have never encountered whipped cream cheese, so I just used the same weight of Philadelphia) with a little icing sugar, salt, vanilla extract and then fold in whipped cream… The mousse was made within minutes and was simply gorgeous – the texture and taste were those of a good cheesecake. My cheesecake-connoisseur husband was delighted with the taste, and I’m sure you would be too if you tried this recipe out! I think the plums worked very well, although the syrup was a bit too thin. I did, however, like the way it ran down the sides of the mousse and filled in the small gaps. Very pretty indeed!
Next time I would boil the poaching syrup down a little once the plums were done. I think a thicker syrup would work much better when spooned over the cheesecake mousse. Also, I’d probably reduce the icing sugar to 1 slightly heaped tablespoon rather than three. It was a little on the sweet side. A couple of long biscuits for dipping into the cheesecake would work very well too…
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Wow, this looks SO good! I guess you could also crumble some biscuits in the bottoms of the glasses, too.
I can’t believe you’d never eaten fresh plums before, though! I’ve never cooked with them, and have eaten so many that I can’t imagine how a recipe which called for them to be cooked would turn out.
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Plums were usually thoroughly bruised or woefully underripe by the time they made it up to the far north of Scotland (practically tundra really), so we never bothered buying them… They’re really nice cooked though, I’ve had them in quite a few dishes and really enjoyed them!
And yes, biscuit crumbs at the bottom of the glass would also be great. Graham crackers would be pretty classic, but crushed amaretti would be _really_ nice!