Plum crumble
- Prepare
- 30 mins to 1 hour
- Cook
- 30 mins to 1 hour
- Serve
- Serves 6
- Dietary
- Nut-freeVegetarian
Whether you've got a glut of plums in the garden or a 2-for-1 deal, this comforting plum crumble will transform your fruit into a brilliant dessert.
From What to Eat Now
Ingredients
For the filling
- 12-15 large ripe plums, stones removed, chopped
- ½ lemon, juice only
- 160g/5½oz caster sugar
For the crumble
- 175g/6oz plain flour, sifted
- 50g/2oz caster sugar
- 50g/2oz dark muscovado sugar or other brown sugar
- 100g/3½oz butter, chilled, cut into cubes
- 100g/3½oz rolled porridge oats
- 2 lemons, zest only (optional)
- custard, to serve
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C/360F/Gas 4.
Place the plums and lemon juice into the bottom of a deep crumble dish and sprinkle with the sugar.
For the crumble, in a bowl, rub together the flour, caster sugar, muscovado sugar and cold butter cubes. (It is important that the butter is cold, or you will end up making more of a dough than a crumble.) When a crumble has been achieved, add in the oats and lemon zest, if using. Mix well.
Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the plum mixture in the dish, then bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes, or until the topping is golden-brown.
To serve, spoon out generous portions into bowls and serve with lashings of custard.
Recipe tips
Plums can vary wildly in terms of their sweetness and juiciness. This can make it hard to judge the sugar quantity. If the plums are sweet when you eat them, you may want to reduce the sugar by a couple of tablespoons.
Don't overload the dish, as plums can put out a lot of juice which can bubble over onto the oven floor. If your crumble dish is a bit small, place it on a baking tray for safety.
You can also make this crumble with greengages, which are a green variety of plums.
Plums are famously good with ginger and orange but also taste lovely with star anise, vanilla or cinnamon. Feel free to add a little powdered spice to the crumble topping or fruit base. A little chopped stem ginger, orange juice or a half teaspoon of vanilla extract would taste brilliant in the fruit.
To freeze the plum crumble, make the crumble in a freezer-to-oven baking dish, wrap it well in cling film and freeze for up to one month. To cook, preheat the oven to 180C/360F/Gas 4 and bake the unwrapped crumble for 50-55 minutes, or until the topping is golden-brown and the filling piping hot.
Consider serving with proper custard or with ,a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/realvanillaicecream_14294">vanilla ice cream.
