Individual Italian plum crumbles

The treasure’s at yesterday’s farmers market included a steal/deal on more Italian plums. I was thinking of making another plum cake but decided to stay light and just make a crumble. I found this wonderful recipe with the key ingredient of spiced candied ginger and cinnamon. Instead of a single large baking dish I used individual ramekins and just some rolled oats with sugar as topping. The soul is in the plums anyhow, right? Once it is all bubbly and hot it is ready to serve!

Plum Crumble
Serves 2-3 (probably just 1)

10 purple Italian or prune plums, cut in half and pitted
1 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 heaping tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger (chop by hand!)
3-4 tablespoons rolled oats + 1/2 TB brown sugar + pinch of cinnamon
Vanilla ice cream, optional

1. Place plums in medium bowl, add brown sugar, candied sugar, ground ginger, cinnamon and the flour. Mix well . Heat oven to 375 degrees, with rack in center.

2. Distribute plums  in 3 ungreased, oven-safe small ramekins.

3. In a small bowl, combine rolled oats, cinnamon and the sugar. Mix well. Sprinkle over plums.

4. Bake for ca 35min. Cool (slightly) and serve.

 

Swiss Plum Tart

Today I finally managed to bake an authentic Swiss “Waehe”, a plum tart with a very thin dough crust, fresh ground hazelnuts (filberts), Italian plums, and a custard made with eggs, cream, milk and some vanilla and sugar. – Delight!

Swiss Plum Tart (“Zwetschgenwaehe”)
Regular 9 inch size tart pan, or a smaller and 2 mini ones.

• homemade or store-bought short pastry or puff pastry (I used a frozen store-bought pie dough)
• 1 pound Italian plums (or apricots, apples, or cherries), pitted and cut in quarters
• 3-4 tablespoon of ground hazelnuts or almonds
• 2 eggs
• 100 ml milk
• 100 ml whipping cream
• 2 teapsoons of flour
• 1-3 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 425F degrees (220C).
Layer a pie tin with thin short pastry or puff pastry, sprinkle the base slightly with ground hazelnuts or almonds. baked in the oven for 7 min to give the crust some stability.
Mix the prepared plums with 1 TB sugar. Once the pie crust is prebaked, remove it from the oven, and arrange the plum slices in a round pattern.  Add 1 TB sugar sprinkled over the fruit and bake in the oven on the lower part for 10 minutes
Meanwhile mix eggs with the milk, whipping cream and flour, add 2 more tablespoons of sugar. Season with vanilla extract. Pour the custard mix over the fruitcake and bake for another 20 minutes. Let it set for 10 min before serving taking it out of the pan. Serve with some whipped cream.
‘
Italian plums, pie dough with hazelnuts, and sugared plums.

Arranged plums in pre-baked crust. Custard added to prebaked fruit.

Baking!

Setting for 10 minutes.

Bon appetite!