I’m super excited that it’s officially fall! For me, autumn is the best season. With falling leaves come thoughts of spiced anything, hot cocoa, soup, and sweaters. For my first official “fall” recipe of the year, I decided to go with a crumble. This spiced plum apple crumble has the perfect balance of sweet, tart, and spicy warmth.
Crumbles are so versatile to make because you can really fill a crumble with any fruit filling you want, and it will taste just fine. Since it’s fall, I wanted to do something with apples, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to use just that. Then I remembered we had a bunch of plums that were about to get too overripe, so I thought utilizing this fruit for the crumble would be a good use for them.
You would think plums with apples would be too sweet. But, I read that plums get really sour when cooked. I believe it has do with most of the sugars getting cooked off, and I’m sure there’s an actual scientific name for this phenomenon, but that’s not what we’re here for.
For this particular recipe, I wanted to really evoke autumn and add a bit of my unique take on things. A simple, regular cinnamon-based crumble would pair just as well with the plums and apples. However, the use of cardamom and pepitas (pumpkin seeds) makes this spiced plum apple crumble slightly more elevated, yet still keep its rusticity. Plus, I just love cardamom!
Tools you’ll need
Ingredients
Spiced plum apple filling
- 4 plums
- 4 apples
- 1 lemon (juiced and zested)
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
Spiced crumble topping
- 3/4 cups all purpose flour
- 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter (cubed)
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 3 tbsp pepitas
- 1/2 tsp cardamom
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Slice the plums and apples into wedges. Then, put the fruit in a bowl with the juice and zest of a lemon and about 1/4 of the brown sugar. Coat the fruit thoroughly with that sugar-lemon and then let it sit there for a bit while you work on your crumble.
- In the meantime, combine all the ingredients for the spiced crumble topping in a food processor. Pulse until it starts to come together and you get some lumps about the size of a walnut. You don't want it to be sandy; you want it to be crumbly! Hence, about 5-7 pulses should do the trick. Set your crumble aside in the fridge briefly.
- At this point, you should see a significant amount of liquid come out from the fruit. This is normal, especially because plums are super watery and juicy. Pour most of the liquid out of the bowl. I know this seems weird, but trust me when I say, your fruit will continue to produce liquid while it bakes.
- After the liquid has been poured out, add the rest of the filling ingredients (remaining brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and salt) to your fruit, making sure to to cover everything in the sugar and spices.
- Put your spiced plum apple fruit filling in your pie baking dish, alternating plum with apple as much as possible, so that every bite you get has each fruit. Then, top it off with your crumble, making sure that every part of that filling is covered with that spiced buttery goodness. Pro tip: put your pie dish on top of a baking sheet. If your filling overflows during the bake, this will catch the spill and prevent your oven from getting dirty. Don't underestimate how much liquid plums have!
- Bake for 35-40 minutes.
- Let it cool for at least 30 minutes before enjoying.
// ON THE SCENE
- Bottom backdrop: Woodville Workshop — Amsterdam
- Props: linen towel, cardamom pods, plum, apple