Homemade Plum Cordial Recipe (2024)

We love making our own cordials from fruits and flowers that we grow in the garden or forage from the local woods and fields. We are now in the height of the plum season and while our tree is still small it produces a mountain of fruit all at once. With the success of our rhubarb cordial and elderflower cordial and champagne home brews earlier in the year we’ve decided to try our hand at some plum cordial using a recipe I found on Delicious Everyday.

When picking your own plums for cordial choose the ripest ones you can find. They should be soft, juicy and almost fall off the tree once you touch them. Make sure to remove any the wasps have been at. Any with broken skin put in a bowl and snack on them that day. The longer you let the plums simmer in the pan the darker the liquid will go giving off the most beautiful aroma that fills the kitchen.

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We have an extensive glass bottle collection of all different shapes and sizes. When making your own cordial it’s nice to mix and match different sizes, shape and textured glass bottles that make you cordial feel and look beautiful and special. I always like to gift bottles of cordial to friends and family, we always do several different batches throughout the year so make sure you get your bottles back from people before you start the next batch.

Cordials are perfect for adding to any drink, mix them with water, lemonade, tonic or why not add it to prosecco or for an extra special G&T. We found our elderflower cordial went best with prosecco but the rhubarb cordial was best mixed with a G&T. For those that want to try their hand at making a boozy Plum Cordial check out our Handmade Plum Gin Recipe that’ll be ready for the Michaelmas feast or why not save for Christmas.

Homemade Plum Cordial Recipe

Recipe from Delicious Everyday. Makes around 1.2 litres of cordial.

Ingredients

• 1 kg ripe plums (stones removed, coarsely chopped)
• 1 litre of water
• Half a lemon
• 25ml orange juice
• Approximately 300g of sugar (depending on how sweet your plums are)
• 1 vanilla bean (split and scraped)

Instructions

1. Add the plums and water to the saucepan and bring to a simmer for over a medium heat for at least 15 minutes (remove from heat and allow to infuse for longer, up to an hour, for a stronger plum taste).
2. Use a sieve to remove any solid plum pieces and press using a spoon to extract all the juices before discarding. Pour the remaining liquid into a measuring jug and note how much liquid remains.
3. Return to a medium heat and combine with the sugar and stir until the sugar dissolves. To determine how much sugar to add taste the plum juice before returning it to the heat and add as little or as much sugar (no more than 600g) depending on your preference.
4. Add the vanilla seeds, lemon and orange juice, bring to the boil, reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Remove from the heat and allow to cool before adding to sterile glass bottles, seal and refrigerate (unopened bottles can last for several months, opened bottles should be consumed with 2-4 weeks).

You can sterilise your own glass bottle at home easily without any fancy kit or harsh chemicals. Just follow our simple instuctions below.

Easy DIY method to Sterilise Glass Bottles

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 100°C
2. Remove the lids from the glass bottles and set aside to soak in a bowl of hot soapy water before thoroughly cleaning.
3. Wash the bottles in warm soapy water and rinse off any bubbles and place on top of a tea towel on the side.
4. Fill each bottle with boiling water and then carefully empty the water down the sink.
5. Place the empty glass bottles on an oven tray and place in the over for 15 minutes.
6. Leave the glasses to cool in the over while you make your recipe.
7. Once cool use a clean tea towel to remove the glass bottles from the over and voila they are ready to use and seal.

Delicious, easy way to use up excess plums that takes very little time and effort what more could you want?

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