Plum Tuckered

It's been a while since I posted, not counting my weekly Wednesday wonderings on Loomy Tunes, simply because we still haven't found a p.m pastry cook and it's busier than I remember summers being at the hotel and a lot of other stuff going on called "life."
  Summer fruits are always arriving at our back door, or we have to go chase them down.  Here is plum cake, made with plums from North Carolina.  I had to take this off the menu because the servers didn't appreciate it and it never moved.  I served it with vanilla bean ice cream and plum preserves, but I guess it just wasn't sexy enough.
  I thought plums were done for the summer, but went into my favorite store, Horn of Plenty, the other day and they had lots of beautiful North Carolina plums.  I bought a basket and last night, Melanie and I designed a new dessert, plum custard tart.  I'll try to remember to take photos today when it's done.  I'll poach the plums in red wine with spices, make a sheet of custard to cut into squares, make Marcona almond pastry to bake to go under the custard, reduce the poaching liquid to dress the plate and hope it "sells."  Nothing actually ever sells.  All food is included in the room rate, so dessert is included in the meals, and almost everyone gets one.  It's up to the wait staff to convince the guests which dessert they should order, so if the wait staff doesn't like the dessert or doesn't know about it, it never gets ordered.  Some of my most favorite desserts have languished for lack of love by the wait staff.
  Blueberries, blackberries, peaches, nectarines and cherries are still all going strong.  I love summer!  So much so that I"m having trouble coming up with chocolate desserts, but my chocolate candy making is getting better every day.  Yesterday, I unmolded three flavors of white chocolate bonbons:  blueberry, coffee and grapefruit.  Today, I'll unmold the ones I made yesterday, dark chocolate with cherry filling and dark chocolate with Earl Grey tea filling.  Day before yesterday, I made the best Pecan Turtles I've ever made!  I was so excited, I made everyone taste them.  Kind of bragging, but really just trying to share the love!  Chocolate-y, caramel-y, pecan-y love!