Chef Thomas
Apple Charlotte
Buttered bread baked to a deep mahogany around a filling of spiced Bramley apples, turned out at the table in a small moment of drama, cold cream poured from a jug alongside.
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Plum Crumble with Oat Topping
Created by Chef Thomas
Victoria plums under a rubbly crumble of oats and demerara, baked until the juices bubble up dark and sticky through the golden topping. A late summer pudding that asks very little and gives back a great deal.
Desserts
British
Comfort Food
20 min
Active Time
40 min cook•1 hr total
Yield6 servings
There's a week or two in late summer when the plum trees give up everything at once. The branches sag. The fruit starts dropping. You pick a bowl full and then another, and by the end of the day the kitchen table is covered in them, and you can't quite remember how it happened. This is the pudding for that week.
A crumble is the most forgiving thing you can make. It doesn't care about precise measurements or clever technique. You halve the fruit, rub butter into flour, scatter it over the top and put it in the oven. Forty minutes later the kitchen smells of warm plums and toasted oats, and you've made something that people will remember longer than anything you tried harder at. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract, and this one is practically a shrug.
The oats are what make it. Demerara sugar, rolled oats, a handful of ground almonds for richness. It bakes into a topping that is partly crisp, partly chewy, with those dark, caramelised edges where the plum juice has bubbled up through the crumble and set like jam. I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: plums, oats, August, rain. It still works.
Serve it with cold double cream from a jug, poured generously. Not ice cream, not custard, not unless that's what you have. Cold cream against hot fruit is one of the small, quiet pleasures of British cooking, and there's no improving on it.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Victoria plums
Quantity
900g
halved and stoned
golden caster sugar (for the fruit)
Quantity
80g
plain flour (for the fruit)
Quantity
1 tbsp
lemon zest
Quantity
from half a lemon
plain flour (for the topping)
Quantity
150g
cold unsalted butter
Quantity
100g
cubed
rolled oats
Quantity
75g
demerara sugar
Quantity
75g
ground almonds
Quantity
50g
fine sea salt
Quantity
pinch
double cream or vanilla ice cream (optional)
Quantity
to serve
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Victoria plumshalved and stoned | 900g |
| golden caster sugar (for the fruit) | 80g |
| plain flour (for the fruit) | 1 tbsp |
| lemon zest | from half a lemon |
| plain flour (for the topping) | 150g |
| cold unsalted buttercubed | 100g |
| rolled oats | 75g |
| demerara sugar | 75g |
| ground almonds | 50g |
| fine sea salt | pinch |
| double cream or vanilla ice cream (optional) | to serve |
Equipment Needed
- •Medium earthenware or ceramic baking dish (about 25cm)
- •Large mixing bowl
- •Small knife for stoning plums
Instructions
- 1
Heat the oven
Set the oven to 180C/160C fan. Find a baking dish that fits the plums snugly in one layer. Something earthenware, if you have it. Nothing too deep. The fruit wants to catch a bit of heat from above as well as below.
- 2
Prepare the plums
Halve the plums and prise out the stones with your thumb. Some will come away cleanly, some will fight you. Don't worry about it. Tip them into the baking dish, cut side up, and scatter over the caster sugar, the tablespoon of flour, and the lemon zest. Turn them gently with your hands until they're glossed all over. Arrange them cut side up again, tucked close together.
If the plums are on the sharp side, add a little more sugar. If they're ripe enough to eat out of hand, hold back. Taste one. That's the only way to know. - 3
Rub the crumble
Tip the flour, butter, ground almonds and salt into a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, lifting the mixture up and letting it fall back, until it looks like rough, uneven breadcrumbs. Some larger lumps are good. A crumble that's too fine bakes into a biscuit layer. You want rubble, not sand.
- 4
Add the oats and sugar
Stir the oats and demerara through the crumble with a spoon. The demerara is the important part here. Its big, honeyed crystals don't quite dissolve in the oven, so you get little pockets of caramel on top. Don't swap it for caster. It isn't the same.
- 5
Top the fruit
Scatter the crumble over the plums in handfuls, letting it fall loosely rather than packing it down. Leave a few gaps here and there so the juices can bubble up through the topping. That's where the best bits are, the spots where the fruit meets the oats and goes sticky and dark.
- 6
Bake until bubbling
Slide the dish into the oven and bake for thirty-five to forty minutes. You're looking for a topping that has gone a deep golden brown and juices that are bubbling up around the edges like slow, purple lava. The kitchen will smell of warm plums and toasted oats and something faintly almondy. That's when it's ready.
If the top is browning before the fruit is bubbling, lay a sheet of foil loosely over it and carry on baking. The fruit needs to cook properly, or the juices won't thicken. - 7
Rest before serving
Take it out and leave it on the side for ten minutes before you serve it. This isn't optional. A crumble straight from the oven is molten at the bottom and will take the roof off your mouth. Ten minutes' rest lets the juices settle and gives you a pudding you can actually eat. Spoon it into bowls and pour cold cream over the top until it runs down into the fruit.
Chef Tips
- •Victoria plums are the ones you want, when you can get them. That brief window in late August and early September when they're ripe, fragrant, and almost too soft to carry home. If you can't find them, any good plum will do: greengages, damsons (with extra sugar), even the darker Italian prune plums. The market decides.
- •Don't skip the ground almonds in the topping. They add a quiet richness and help the crumble go properly crisp rather than dusty. A small thing that makes a noticeable difference.
- •A crumble is better the second day, eaten cold for breakfast with a spoonful of thick yogurt. I won't pretend this is a secret. Half the reason to make one is the morning after.
- •Cold butter, rubbed in with cool hands. If the butter starts to go soft and greasy, put the whole bowl in the fridge for ten minutes and come back to it. Warm crumble mixture bakes into a solid layer instead of the loose, rubbly texture you're after.
Advance Preparation
- •The crumble topping can be made up to three days ahead and kept in an airtight container in the fridge. It also freezes well for up to a month. Scatter it over the fruit straight from frozen and add a few minutes to the baking time.
- •The fruit can be prepared and sugared an hour or two before baking. Any longer and it starts to weep too much juice.
- •A baked crumble keeps in the fridge for up to three days. Reheat in a low oven, covered loosely with foil, until warmed through. Avoid the microwave if you can. It turns the topping soft.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 240g)
Calories
480 calories
Total Fat
19 g
Saturated Fat
9 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
9 g
Cholesterol
36 mg
Sodium
20 mg
Total Carbohydrates
72 g
Dietary Fiber
5 g
Sugars
40 g
Protein
8 g
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