RECIPE: Summer fruit calls for a crispy crumble
Summer baking is for fruit.
It’s true you can bake the same loaf of bread or tray of brownies every week and probably never perfect them, but I would argue that finding joy in the seasonality of baking, as one does with cooking, will diversify and sharpen your baking skills better than the same weekly bake.
What’s more, if baking is about simple things with intention and skill, then summer baking offers the perfect training ground to broaden our skills. Finding the perfect fruit and combining it with just enough butter, sugar, and flour to enhance — not mask — the flavor of said fruit, is harder than it sounds. The summer fruit nature offers is too delicate to take a heavy hand with spice and fat. Peaches, plums, nectarines and berries require us to step back and trust nature has done the job correctly.
A beautiful plum crumble is simple: The crumble is light, lemony and provides a just touch of textural contrast to lightly sweetened and spiced plums. The plum crumble comes together in less than 30 minutes, and gets out to the beach or pool in no time with a perfect dessert waiting for you at the end of the day.
- For the crumble:
- ¼ cup (50 grams) sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Pinch of salt
- 2 cups (250 grams) unbleached all-purpose flour
- ½ cup plus 3 tablespoons (150 grams) very cold butter, cubed
- For the filling:
- ¼ cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon (5 grams) cinnamon
- Pinch of kosher salt
- 2 pounds (roughly 8 medium) plums, washed, dried, and pits removed
- 1 tablespoon butter for greasing
- In a large bowl, rub together sugar, lemon zest and salt until mixture is fragrant. Add flour and butter and use your fingers to quickly combine, until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Cover with plastic and refrigerate 20 minutes.
- Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 10-inch ovenproof baking dish with butter.
- In a medium bowl, combine sugar, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
- Roughly chop plums, then place half in the bottom of the prepared baking dish, distributing evenly to cover the base. Sprinkle half the cinnamon-sugar mixture over plums. Place remaining plums on top, followed by remaining cinnamon-sugar mix. Top with chilled crumble dough, covering uniformly.
- Bake 40 minutes, until crumble is golden and fruit is gently bubbling and seeping around the sides. Serves 8.
Nutritional information
Per serving: Per serving: 367 calories (percent of calories from fat, 43), 4 grams protein, 50 grams carbohydrates, 3 grams fiber, 18 grams total fat (11 grams saturated), 46 milligrams cholesterol, 173 milligrams sodium.Chris Wilkins has been a professional baker for 12 years. He is a two-time James Beard Award nominee and the founder and co-owner of Root Baking Co. and Pizza Jeans. Submit your baking questions to bakebetterajc@gmail.com.
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