Plum Crumble

Tues 26 Sept 2006

Still behind with the entries but trying valiantly to catch up. After my delicious plum cake, and including plums in my lunches, I still had some left to use up. I was lacking a bit of inspiration but opened the newspaper and came across a Nigel Slater recipe for a damson almond crumble. That was good enough for me ... and plus, a crumble has the advantage of being ludicrously simple.

I spent a little time picking over my remaining plums, washing them and stoning them, before throwing them in a pan with a good solid sprinkling of sugar. Because I'd been washing the plums I didn't bother adding any water, and just cooked the plums for a bit before putting them, and their juices, into a buttered baking dish.

I have to confess to being lazy and while making the crumble by hand would undoubtedly be therapeutic it was mid week and that put the mighty Magimix into service. 100g of cold unsalted butter were whizzied up with 150g of plain flour to (fine) breadcrumb consistency. To this, I added 75g of sugar (a combination of caster sugar and golden granulated) and 50g of ground almonds. If you use a food processor the crumble is going to be quite fine - but I really liked Nigel Slater's idea of raking some water through the mixture to make it clump together a bit (although, I confess to only thinking of this after the crumble had gone on top of the plums!).

Tip the crumble over the plum mixture and bake in an oven preheated to 200C until done, which will be around half an hour or so ... but you'll know as the topping will be browning and the fruit juices will be bubbling up from underneath. Serve with whatever is to hand - even yoghurt was good!










tagged with plums, crumble

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