Baked plums in red wine

Serves: 4
Course: Dessert
Cooking Time: 0 hr 45 mins
Ingredients
  • 6-8 large ripe, firm plums300ml red wine50g brown sugar1 tbsp redcurrant jelly1 bay leaf1 cinnamon stickTo serve:Amaretti or ginger nut biscuitsVanilla ice cream
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1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees fan. 2. Remove the stems and place the whole plums in a small ovenproof dish (the plums should fit snugly together). 3. Place red wine, sugar, redcurrant jelly, bay leaf and cinnamon stick in a medium saucepan and bring the boil, then simmer over a medium high heat for 10 minutes to reduce the liquid by a third. 4. Once reduced, pour the sauce over the plums and transfer the dish to the preheated oven (reserve the saucepan as you will need it again to reduce the sauce a second time). 5. Bake the plums in the preheated oven for approximately 25-30 minutes or until just soft (the perfect tenderness is when the flesh begins to release from the stone), before the plums collapse and lose their shape.  6. Set the dish of plums aside in a warm place, while you return the sauce to the saucepan (discard the bay leaf and cinnamon stick at this stage unless you want to keep them for garnish). Over a high heat, reduce the sauce once again until it just starts to turn into a light syrupy consistency (not slick and jam like). 7. To serve, divide plums between plates, pour hot syrup over the plums and accompany with a quenelle of ice cream and crumbed biscuits.