Seasonal Recipes - Plum & Ginger Crumble Cake

With hurricane Bertha whipping up a storm outside we thought it was time to pick the few plums we have on our small tree before they were blown off. Being the good Mum that I am, I sent my 11year old up the ladder to do the picking.

This is the first year that we've had any plums on the tree so we're hoping that each year from now on the harvest will get bigger and bigger.

For now though, we'll have just enough for a crumble or Plum and Ginger Crumble Cake, as featured on Great British Chefs.

Sunday Crumble

Sunday wouldn't be Sunday without a pudding......or so it would seem in my house. I've made a rod for my own back making nice puddings as now they come to expect it...every week! Don't get me wrong, I don't do the full Roast Dinner palava every week, or even once a month. If I'm perfectly honest I make them around once every six weeks....or so. It takes so much time and effort to make one and then it's gone in minutes and you're left with a mountain of pans to wash - well that's actually the husbands job but it's very off-putting when, half way through dinner, he scans the worktops and sink area to see how much mess there is, the less mess the more he enjoys his dinner! If I actually enjoyed eating a roast I suppose I wouldn't mind all that effort but to be truthful I would much prefer a Jacket Potato, beans and salad - I just wish all the others would be happy with that too.


Today's pudding was Crumble. I looked in the freezer for inspiration and settled on an Apple and Pear Crumble. I made it the easy way, with ready prepared frozen fruit (it was on special offer in Tesco) but you could use fresh cooking or eating apples, plums, blackberries or rhubarb.


Apple and Pear Crumble


250g Frozen Pears
500g Frozen Cooking Apple
100g butter (softened)
100g demerara sugar
200g plain flour (you could replace a couple of tablespoons of flour with oats)

• Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

• Place the pears and apple into a large baking dish and set aside (you may prefer to leave them in the fridge overnight to defrost)

• Beat the butter and sugar together.

• Stir in the flour (and oats) until it resembles large breadcrumbs.

• Sprinkle evenly over the apples/pears.

• Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown. If you're cooking the fruit from frozen you will need to cover the crumble with foil before baking and remove once the fruit has softened and bake for an extra 10-15 minutes to brown the top.

If you like a sweeter pudding (or you use very sharp apples, plums or rhubarb) you might want to add some sugar to the fruit.




Serve with Cream, Custard or Ice Cream.




30.09.11 I have added this recipe to Reluctand Housedad's Recipe Shed which for this week is 'recipes with 5 ingredients or less'.

Today I served the crumble with ice cream, but not just any old ice cream, this was a delicious Clotted Cream and Blackcurrant ice cream from Kelly's of Cornwall.

Kelly’s of Cornwall ice cream is the only genuine ice cream that is made in Cornwall. Made in Bodmin with true dairy ingredients including lashings of Cornish clotted cream and Cornish whole milk, it is the perfect, quick and easy dessert for all the family to enjoy. Give it a try and you’ll be hooked. It takes over 100 years of expertise to make ice cream this special!

I took a short break from my diet (in the name of research) and tried this ice cream on it's own and together with the crumble and even though I'm not a big fan of ice cream I really liked this, it was just like eating blackcurrants and cream, it was extremely creamy but not sickly as the blackcurrants added a touch of sharpness to it. The rest of the family enjoyed it too, Hanna was very excited that she was eating purple ice cream, apparently she's never had ice cream that colour before!


You can find Kelly's Blackcurrant and Clotted Cream ice cream in Waitrose and Tesco for £3.79, although currently it's half price in Tesco.




I was provided with vouchers to purchase a tub of ice cream for the purpose of this review, however as it was half price I bought 2, well it would be silly not to!