Plums only have 46 calories per 100g, contain no saturated fats and are full of minerals and vitamins. They help to increase the absorption of iron into the body and are a great source of vitamin C. As our garden plum tree is currently heaving with ripened fruit I couldn’t resist rustling up a delicious deconstructed plum crumble for the children.
Deconstructed Summer Plum Crumble And Custard
A traditional crumble is a biscuity topping over soft fruit that you bake in the oven and serve with ice cream, cream or custard. My little twist on this classic is to serve the plum reduction with vanilla custard and fruity oat cookies on the side. I started by washing and slicing each plum in half and removing the stone from the middle, leaving the skin on and placing them into a frying pan on a medium heat. As the plums started to shed their juice when the pan warmed up, I added a sprinkle of brown and white cane sugar to taste whist the fruit bubbled away lightly for around half an hour, turning into a gooey mush of deep red and rich purple.
The Children love Harvesting Fruit From Our Garden
Whilst the plums cooked I began the fruit cookies, for which I used raisins for a chewy juicy kick. I weighed out 100g of porridge oats, 100g of butter and 100g of self raising white flour with 75g of brown sugar and mixed it together in a bowl. Rubbing the ingredients together with my fingers for several minutes so that the butter loosens up and coats the mixture, I then added a handful of raisins to the bowl although you could add 100g of chocolate chips, sultanas, coconut or crushed nuts if you like. I dusted a shallow oven tray with flour and patted and pressed my cookies into small roundish pieces, leaving them evenly spaced out as they swell slightly when cooking before placing them in the oven at 180 degrees for twelve minutes.
I spooned the plum reduction into a dish with warm vanilla custard and a couple of cookies on the side. If you’d like to make this recipe as an actual crumble instead of cooking it separately you simply have to layer the fruit into a baking dish with the oat mixture on top and bake in the oven for around twenty minutes. You might also like to try adding raspberries or apples to the plum reduction or ginger to the crumble. The plums are zingy and fresh against the smooth creamy custard and crisp crumbly textured oat cookies, making this a perfectly practical pud that absolutely anyone can make.
