We attended a very popular music festival last weekend. There were bands galore. Surprisingly, I had even heard of many of them and I am notoriously out-of-the-music-loop. However, despite the amount of fun I was supposed to be having, I couldn’t help but wish, every few minutes or so, that I was back home, snuggled up under the soft light of a lamp, finishing Anna Karenina, with a cup of tea and a few warm bites of this crumble.
Try the crumble and then perhaps in a small way you can empathize with my feelings of dissent.
The tart plum skins, when left intact, melt into the rest of the dish to create a warm, strikingly crimson-colored pudding. Finely-diced candied ginger lends a soft hum of spice, all of this beneath a crumbly, almost-cookie top.
PLUM CRUMBLE WITH CRYSTALLIZED GINGER
Adapted from Marian Burros
I scaled back the amount of crystalized ginger to my tastes from 2 heaping tablespoons to 1 1/2 tablespoons. If you quite like ginger go all the way; otherwise, I would recommend the moderate approach.
Look for firm plums, not too ripe, but not rock hard, either. Also, the recipe calls for Italian prune plums. They are rather small and oval. The first time I made this I was able to find exactly that variety. However, since then, I’ve simply substituted a more everyday type easily found in stores, the round ones with skin almost as dark as an eggplant. The results were just as good.
Prep the plums:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons brown or white rice flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 scant tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
12 purple Italian or prune plums, cut in half and pitted, or 6 regular dark purple plums, quartered and pitted
For the crumbly top:
1/3 cup sorghum flour (or brown rice flour)
1/3 cup white rice flour
3 tablespoons potato starch
2 tablespoons tapioca starch
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted clarified butter, melted (or butter, or Spectrum organic shortening)
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the ingredients for the plums, beginning with the brown sugar through the ground ginger. Add the sliced plums to the bowl and using your hands, stir to coat. Place the plums in an ungreased 9″ pie pan or 8″ square baking dish. Sprinkle the candied ginger over the plums. Set aside.
- In a separate bowl mix the remaining dry ingredients for the crumble topping. Pour in the melted oil and using your fingers mix and shape to form little crumbs and clumps. Scatter handfuls over the plums so that they are thoroughly coated and covered.
- Bake 35 to 45 minutes, or longer, until the top is a nice golden brown and the plum filling is tender.
LARA SHOLL 
Being new to the life of working around food sensitivities, your blog is my new best friend, Lara! Christian was sweet enough to surprise me by making this dessert, however – he made it with some Grant Family Farms frozen cherries that we had on hand. He also used the coconut oil instead of clarified butter for the crumble. (maybe 3 or 4 T of coconut oil would do the trick?) It turned out wonderful, and we look forward to making it again with a variety of different fruits (blackberries? peaches?)
Susan! I’ve just stumbled upon this huge back-log of lovely comments you left me. Where in the world was I?! Oh right, pregnant! Anyways, thanks so much for the blog-love and I’m so sorry not to have responded sooner.
I do remember when you made this and us talking about the quantity of coconut oil. I agree with you that if using coconut oil as a substitute for butter or clarified butter, it would be good to cut it back by half (down to about 4 tablespoons). Good tip 🙂