The best plum crumble pie

Quick and easy, too.

I have been on a baking/blogging/writing hiatus almost since fall of 2020. Not that I was very active before that, but starting in August of 2020, I started a low-carb diet for anti-inflammatory purposes, to see if the pain/numbness in my body would get better. Low carb, no sugar = no baking. I’m still on the fence if the low carb diet helped my body, but now I am re-introducing butter and sugar into my diet anyway - mostly because I also want to live a little. And working with butter and sugar is my happy place. That is also worth something, folks! Bottom line - eat mostly healthy, but don’t deprive yourself of what brings you joy!

Having said that, the process of baking brings me even more joy than eating the final product, so here I am, filling up my freezer one baked good at a time.

In August I was gifted a big bowl of red currants. And since they don’t keep, and don’t freeze well (I must admit that I haven’t really tried freezing red currants), I decided to make a pie. I adooooore pies. There is just something so deliciously decadent about a pie. Any pie. So it started with a Swiss Quark and Berry pie (in German), then the ice was broken the oven was warm, and it snowballed from there. I WAS BACK!

But the recipe I wanted to share in this inaugural newsletter is the recipe I discovered after the one above. Because again, I was gifted a big bag of prune plums, and was on the lookout for a recipe. And boy, did I fall in love with this recipe, and have made countless variations since. Let’s get to it, shall we?

QUICK AND EASY PRUNE PLUM CRUMBLE PIE RECIPE:

Ingredients for the base and crumble:

• 240 g all purpose flour

• ½ ts baking powder

• pinch of salt

• 160 g butter, cold, diced

• 100 g light brown sugar *

• 1 ts vanilla or vanilla sugar

• 1 egg yolk

• 1½ tablespoon ice water

*Don’t panic if you don’t have any light brown sugar. I have successfully substituted both all white sugar and a mix of white and brown sugar for this recipe.

Method for the base and crumble:

• Add flour, sugar, vanilla, pinch of salt and butter to your food processor and pulse until it resembles corse crumbs

• Add your mixture to a medium bowl and make a well in the middle.

• Mix your egg yolk well with the ice water and add it to the flour/butter/sugar, and mix until the dough comes together.

• Dump 2/3 of your dough onto your pie tin. I always use parchment paper for easier cleanup.

• Press the dough down to the base and up the sides of the tin.

Ingredients for the prune plum filling:

• optional: 3 - 4 tablespoons prune plum jam

• about 300 grams of prune plums, de-stoned, sliced

• 1 - 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1 tablespoon corn starch

Method for the prune plum filling:

• add the prune jam to the base of the pie if using

• add sugar and corn starch to the sliced plums and let macerate if you have time

Assemble:

• Add the plum mixture to the base and crumble the rest of the dough over it

• Bake at 180°C, at the lowest level for 40-45 minutes, or until golden brown.

• Let cool, and dust with icing sugar before eating

• I love to eat this with soft whipped cream