Delicious Plum Crunch

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.