Winter warming plum crumble..
At this time of year we really like to take advantage of the wonderful seasonal fruits filling the supermarket shelves. You can keep your melons, mangos and pineapple – for my family it’s all about the Bramley apples, Victoria plums and Conference pears, great British staples of the autumn harvest that make the very best of puddings.
As a family we like to take a walk on a Sunday afternoon, but started to often find after a generous Sunday lunch that while the spirit was strong, the flesh was weak and a sofa-based nap was more tempting. As a result, we decided to split our Sunday lunch into two parts – the main course of roast meat with all the trimmings first, and a tasty pudding waiting for us on our return.
In the winter months, this has to be a family favourite – a home-made crumble. Apple, pear or plum, we’re not fussy, but in the weeks before Christmas a regular on the menu is my plum and ginger crumble, made decadent with dark chocolate chips.
We have served this to family and friends for years, now, and are often asked for the recipe, which couldn’t be easier. So here it is for you, my recipe for Plum, ginger and dark chocolate chip crumble!
Ingredients
1KG red plums
300g plain flour
200g salted butter
175g soft brown sugar
2 tsp demerara sugar
2 tbs ginger preserve
4 tbsp boiling water
25g dark chocolate chips
20-24cm baking dish
Method
Wash and halve your plums, cut out the stone and cut the flesh into six equal parts, and spread them across the bottom of your baking dish. It should go about two layers deep. There is no need to cook the fruit first. This just makes it soggy and watery, by letting it cook with the crumble, you get proper chunks of fruit, not a semi-puree.
Put two tablespoons of ginger preserve into a mug and add four tablespoons of boiling water and stir till the preserve dissolves. Drizzle the mix across the chopped plums. There is no need for additional sugar – the ginger preserve is sweet enough, and adding more sugar will take away from the slightly sharp taste of the plums against the sweet crumble, warming ginger and sudden hits of dark chocolate.
Lightly scatter the chocolate chips evenly across the dish. Warning – less is more, here, too many will overpower the rest of the flavours, so take care to get an even distribution.
Make your crumble mix by dicing your butter and adding this with the flour and sugar to a food processor, with the chopping blade in place. Blitz in pulses till the mix resembles breadcrumbs. If you don’t have a food processor you can do this by hand – mix your sugar and flour, then drop in the butter cubes separately, not in a big chunk. Then lift the mix, a couple of cubes of butter at a time, between fingers and thumbs and rub together. The butter will slowly break down into smaller and smaller pieces till you get the breadcrumb-style mix.
Sprinkle your crumble mix evenly over the top of your fruit, and sprinkle lightly with demerara sugar. You can use more than two teaspoons if you want a thicker sweet crust, or mix with rolled oats to get a chewy topping.
Bake at 180 degrees C (160C Fan/Gas 4) for 40-45 minutes, until you see the crumble topping has turned golden and fruit syrup starts to bubble up.
To serve
I like mine plain, with no additional accompaniment, but it works just as well with a drizzle of single cream or a good dollop of classic vanilla custard.
You’re welcome!
Eddie – Friday 29th November 2024. (Image used of dish).
