Recipe: Make seasonal plum crumble for a ‘delicious’ summer pudding

Plums are in season from August to early October during which they grow in abundance on trees across the UK.

While the raw fruits seem hard to beat when plucked fresh from the branch, they’re even sweeter and richer when stewed into a crumble.

And one home cook has the perfect recipe that uses just a handful of simple ingredients.

Writing on her blog Penny’s Recipes, Penny Ritson said: “This plum crumble recipe is an ideal way to use up lots of plums…like a lot of seasonal produce, you can easily get to a glut situation where you have far more of a fruit than you really want – but of course, you don’t want to waste any.”

She claimed that the dish is best enjoyed warm from the oven with custard or ice cream, but it’s easy to freeze in smaller portions for a “delicious homemade dish” at the drop of a hat.

This British classic is best cooked in a large, square baking dish, but it can be portioned into smaller ramekins if required.

Once the cookware has been lightly greased, preheat the oven to 180C and move on to preparing the fruit. Do this by cutting the plums in half around the stone and peeling the two halves apart.

Discard the stones, then place fleshy fruit into the bottom of the lasagne-style dish and sprinkle with two or three tablespoons of light muscovado sugar.

In a separate bowl, rub together the flour and 85g of cold butter to form breadcrumbs. Stir in the almonds, oats or extra flour if using, along with the 85g of sugar, and combine with a spoon. 

Penny explained: “You can add flavourings such as mixed spice, coriander or cinnamon. With this particular recipe, I have used some ground almonds which gives a sweet and smoother crumble.

“It makes a lighter crumble topping which is more appropriate when the days are still sunny.”

Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the plums and place in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the crumble is brown and the fruit is bubbling through.

Penny said: “In the summer months I would recommend serving crumble with good quality vanilla ice cream or pouring cream. In the winter months, it is hard to beat custard!”

Plums are in season from August to early October during which they grow in abundance on trees across the UK.

While the raw fruits seem hard to beat when plucked fresh from the branch, they’re even sweeter and richer when stewed into a crumble.

And one home cook has the perfect recipe that uses just a handful of simple ingredients.

Writing on her blog Penny’s Recipes, Penny Ritson said: “This plum crumble recipe is an ideal way to use up lots of plums…like a lot of seasonal produce, you can easily get to a glut situation where you have far more of a fruit than you really want – but of course, you don’t want to waste any.”

She claimed that the dish is best enjoyed warm from the oven with custard or ice cream, but it’s easy to freeze in smaller portions for a “delicious homemade dish” at the drop of a hat.

This British classic is best cooked in a large, square baking dish, but it can be portioned into smaller ramekins if required.

Once the cookware has been lightly greased, preheat the oven to 180C and move on to preparing the fruit. Do this by cutting the plums in half around the stone and peeling the two halves apart.

Discard the stones, then place fleshy fruit into the bottom of the lasagne-style dish and sprinkle with two or three tablespoons of light muscovado sugar.

In a separate bowl, rub together the flour and 85g of cold butter to form breadcrumbs. Stir in the almonds, oats or extra flour if using, along with the 85g of sugar, and combine with a spoon. 

Penny explained: “You can add flavourings such as mixed spice, coriander or cinnamon. With this particular recipe, I have used some ground almonds which gives a sweet and smoother crumble.

“It makes a lighter crumble topping which is more appropriate when the days are still sunny.”

Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the plums and place in the oven for 40-45 minutes until the crumble is brown and the fruit is bubbling through.

Penny said: “In the summer months I would recommend serving crumble with good quality vanilla ice cream or pouring cream. In the winter months, it is hard to beat custard!”