Plum Crumble
serves 6
for the crumble topping
500g caster sugar
600g strong flour
375g unsalted butter
for sweet poached plums
1kg ruby fleshed freestone plums
250g (1 cup) white sugar – we also like to add scraped out vanilla beans they seem to add a wonderful subtle richness to the poached fruit
Method
for the crumble topping
Put the flour and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer. Chop the butter into small pieces and using the pastry hook work the butter into the flour and sugar until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Store in a airtight container in the fridge or vac in a back that you can reopen and reseal as your use the topping.
for the poached plums
Pit the plums. Put a cup of water and half a cup of sugar into a saucepan large enough to hold the half plums as well. Stirring, bring the sugar and water to the boil and dissolve the sugar. Turn the heat down, add the plum halves and bring back to the boil; immediately turn the heat down to the lowest point and simmer for 2 –3 minutes. This will depend on the ripeness of the fruit and very ripe fruit should not be left for longer than two minutes or it will fall to pieces. Allow the fruit to cool in the syrup. The fruit for the crumble must be undercooked to take into account the time it will spend in the oven.
Strain off the syrup, a little is used to moisten the fruit but most of it is used for another purpose.
to finish the crumble cooking time 40 minutes
pre heat oven to 175°C
Tip the fruit into the bottom of an oven proof dish and add about half a cup of syrup. Put a layer of fine crumble topping over the fruit and then press it into large lumps and cover the top. Put into the oven and bake until the top is going and cooked.
accompaniment suggestion
Rich cream and real vanilla ice cream.
tip — it is always a surprise that a dessert as simple as this sells so well in a restaurant. For the home cook some vac packs of poached fruit and crumble topping mean that unexpected guests and dessert is never an issue. remember when vaccing food food service gloves must be warn and hands thoroughly washed.
