Everyone has their favorite cookbooks and at the top of my list are Ina Gartens. She has fabulous recipes and many of them I make over and over again. One of them is from her cookbook Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. It’s a Plum Crunch that has a decadent oatmeal cookie like topping. Fruit desserts with oatmeal toppings are some of my favorite desserts.
Perfecting Your Recipes
One of the beauties of making a recipe over and over is that you can adjust it to your liking. Even Ina Garten admits to doing the same. This Plum Crunch recipe is a variation of her friends recipe.
In this case, I have adjusted the sweeteners as I like my fruit desserts more on the tart side. The original recipe calls for Creme de Cassis liqueur. I didn’t have any so I substituted Chambord Liqueur. I also chose to leave out the walnuts.
For recipes that I tend to repeat, I bookmark them with post it notes so I can easily find them. I use the post it note like a tab and write the name of the recipe on the post it note as shown in the photo below.
Plum Crunch
This is my variation of Ina Garten’s Plum Crunch.
3 lbs. plums, pitted and sliced into equal size wedges, about 1/2 thick
1 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons Chambord Liqueur
For the Topping
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
Vanilla Ice Cream for serving
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
For the fruit, in a large bowl, combine the plums, brown sugar, flour and Chambord. Pour the mixture into a 9 x 12 shallow baking dish, sprayed with Canola Oil cooking spray.
For the topping, combine the flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, salt, oatmeal and butter. With a hand mixer, mix on low-speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas. Scatter evenly over the plum mixture.
Bake the plum crunch for 40-45 minutes, until the plums are bubbling and the top is browned. Serve warm or at room temperature with the vanilla ice cream.
If you enjoy this recipe as much as I do, it will become one of your go to desserts.
Yum!
Is it bad if it’s almost midnight and I really want some plum crunch – it looks amazing!!
Looks delicious! I love plums!
for the plum crisp recipe, what can I use to substitute the 6 tablespoons Chambord Liqueur? Thank you
Hi Ellen
I found this on the internet regarding a substitution for Chambord. You can also just leave it out of the recipe. I believe the crisp will still be full of flavor!
About Chambord
A black raspberry liqueur. It is used in cocktails as well as a culinary ingredient.
Substitute for Chambord
1 tsp raspberry extract = 2 tbsp raspberry liqueur OR creme de cassis
I hope this helps.
I was given a big bag of fresh plums from a friend. So I found this recipe & thought it would be a good way to use up the fresh plums. I didn’t hv the Chambord liqueur so I omitted it out of the recipe. The crisp turned out great! The topping is crunchy and slightly sweet which was perfect because the plums were too tart. The plums weren’t ripe at all & came out very tart even when baked in this crisp. I also added chopped walnuts for extra crunch in the topping. My family liked the crisp & it’s great with ice cream. I’m assuming you could use a dollop of whipped cream instead of ice cream also. Next time I use fresh fruit I’ll add more sugar to the fruit more if the fruit is not ripe.
Glad you enjoyed the plum crisp Melissa. Yes, it is still very flavorful without the Chambord. If you want to use something in place of it, I found this substitute on line: 1 tsp raspberry extract = 2 tbsp raspberry liqueur OR creme de cassis