Ruby Red Amaretti Crumble

Quite a fancy name for a crumble, but then it is a Nigella recipe and she is famed for her choices of phrase: chocolate digestives are crushed ‘until they look like dark Mexican mud’, chocolate cake is ‘a confection to exult in, not to regret’ and about peanut butter she says ‘Why, I feel the urge to just rub it all over my body!’ So in retrospect, she went pretty easy on this dish. Plus, this is so good it deserves a glamorous title. In essence, its a Plum, Orange and Amaretti Crumble but its probably the best crumble I’ve ever tried. Apple Crumble is good, the deep purple of Apple and Blackberry even better. Peach is nice in the summer and Pineapple for something a little bit different. But trust me, none are as good as this!The changes that make it stand out are small but effective. The plums are cooked lightly first in a bit of sugar, orange juice and zest to give it a little brightness, make the whole thing smell gorgeous and infuse it with orange. Crushed amaretti crumbs are sprinkled over the plums once they’re in the dish, and then a whole heap more are stirred into the crumble mixture. The combination works so well and smells absolutely intoxicating! We made another one for a friend shortly after ours was all gone, and it proved very tricky to give it away without diving in. With heaps of cream, a rainy evening and the finale of Downton Abbey this crumble made the perfect Sunday night. You can find the recipe here (as well as watch Nigella make it in her classic style) – try it and you might become like my family, planning to add amaretti to every single crumble in the future. Enjoy!

Plum Frangipane Tart

I love making tarts. The whole system just seems to fit together well – the pastry making, the making of the filling whilst the pastry is in the fridge, the making of any topping whilst the first part is in the oven. Tarts take a while and often have lots of different stages and bowls needed, but I find it quite therapeutic. I also like baking pastry blind – one of the first things I learnt to make was Lemon Meringue Pie with my sister and the pastry was always my job. However, this tart was completely new to me in that it skipped that step altogether.I always presumed that you always needed to blind bake a pastry case before the filling went in. Logistically, I just figured that pouring a wet filling onto raw pastry would equal disaster and ‘soggy bottoms’. Whilst this is true for many tarts, not so with this one! The pastry is rolled out and shaped exactly to the tin (there’s also no need to leave excess pastry on in case of shrinkage with this recipe) and then on goes the frangipane filling. Top that with slices of raw plums, pop in the oven and thirty minutes later a delicious tart is cooling and awaiting plates and forks! The almond filling for this tart stays rather soft and does not fully set into a sponge. This contrasts nicely with the crisp pastry – the pastry was crisper then any I have made before, even without blind baking! Depending on which plum variety you use, the fruit can add extra sweetness or a bit of sharpness on top. The recipe is an Angela Hartnett, and she suggests making the recipe into mini tarts. Whilst I know these would look really pretty, I wanted to keep this one large tart so that I could cut a little sliver every time I went past ;) Hope you enjoy!

Plum and Marzipan Galette

I made this galette a good few weeks ago now – just as the weather changed from Summer to Autumn. Now, we are deep in Winter but the galette has still been made repeatedly. The first time, the galette was a chance to begin making good use of the fabulous Autumn produce that Britain does so well: plums, apples, pears – our climate is so much more suited to these than endless supplies of summer berries. Since then, I have made it simply because I loved it and it is so easy! Just 4 ingredients: puff pastry, plums, marzipan, sugar. Easy as pie…The key ingredient in the galette is the marzipan. Other than Christmas cake every year and the odd new recipe, marzipan’s presence in my kitchen is rare…mainly because I know I will just eat it all. :) The plums I used here aren’t very sweet – instead quite sharp and therefore the marzipan combination doesn’t become too sickly. The marzipan also soaks up the plum juices and ensures the pastry stays crisp. Plus, the demerara sugar sprinkled on top balances out the melting marzipan and soft juicy plums. Tempted yet? I didn’t use a specific recipe each time to make this, it can be easily scaled up or down depending on the ingredients you have to hand, the fruit you have and the amount of people you have to serve. For around 6-8 people, these amounts will do…

Ingredients: 500g plums
450g puff pastry
400g marzipan
2 tablespoons milk
4-5 tablespoons demerara sugar

1. Roll the puff pastry out until it is a large circle and around 3mm thick. Place onto a large baking tray that has been lined with parchment paper.
2. Roll the marzipan to a circle which is 5mm thick, or 1cm smaller than the pastry. Gently lay this on top of the pastry.
3. Halve and stone the plums. Cut each half into four slices, and carefully arrange on top of the marzipan.
4. Bring up the excess pastry from the edges and fold over the marzipan and plums. Sprinkle the plums with some of the demerara sugar. Brush the pastry with the milk, and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
5. Bake in a 170’C/Gas Mark 3/325’F oven for 20 minutes until the pastry is risen and golden and the plums are soft. Enjoy whilst warm!

A Wonderful…

plum and almond cake!

Another plum recipe! Plums are definitely one of my new favourite fruits – up there with rhubarb, strawberries and raspberries. They are not really one thing in particular, but a fruit full of contradictions:With all three there is something about their glorious pink/red/purple colours, their soft-yet-firm touch and sweet-but-sharp taste!. This plum and almond cake above is from Nigel Slater’s book, The Kitchen Diaries. I was actually looking for a marble cake at the time (last post), but found this! Ahh, thank goodness for cookbook indexes.

The Kitchen Diaries is exactly what it sounds – a year of Nigel Slater’s diary of what he has cooked and bought (food-wise) each day. Some days it is simply “was very tired – bought a pizza” but most of it is gorgeous descriptions of the food he has bought, markets he has visited and recipes he made. I was a bit worried about the cake when it came out the oven – it was very moist, but the title of the cake restored my faith in it! It was absolutely delicious, really almondy and sweet then you get a burst of flavour from the plums! I couldn’t fit all the ones above into the cake so I made some more plum compote which, happily, was delicious with the cake! Definitely worth a try for any fellow plum fans.
A wonderfully, moist, fresh plum cake from The Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater
Enough for 12
150g butter
150g unrefined golden caster sugar
16 plums
3 large eggs
75g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
100g ground almonds
1. Set the oven to 180’C?/Gas Mark 4. Line the base of a square 20cm cake tin, about 6cm deep, with a piece of baking paper.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. I stop only when the mixture if light, soft and the colour of vanilla ice-cream.
3. Halve the plums, remove the stones and cut each half in two.
4. Break the eggs, beat them lightly with a fork, then add them bit-by-bit to the butter and sugar. Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold them gently into the mixture. I do this with a large metal spoon rather than the food mixer. Fold in the ground almonds.
5. Scrape the mixture into the lined cake tin. Place the quartered plums onto the cake mixture (do not worry about precision here – they sink into the cake).
6. Bake for 45minutes then test for doneness with a skewer. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 15minutes before turning out.

A lot going on…

My latest bake has a LOT going on. It has sharp plum compote. It has sugary sweet marzipan. It has hard-hitting cinnamon. It has vibrant zesty orange. It can only be…Plum, Marzipan and Cinnamon Muffins!

These muffins were verrrrryy good :) Even though they do have lots of components, they worked together and were tasty. The compote was an absolute, total, 100% success :D . I couldn’t find a cinnamon stick so I sprinkled over 1tsp of ground cinnamon and it was lovely. The sweet sticky sauce, the soft plums and sharp cinnamon – mmm! There wasn’t quite enough and next time I would probably double it as there was hardly any in the muffins and not quite enough for the top of each muffin. I didn’t put the compote on each muffin straight away as they would go soggy, everyone just helped themselves when they had their muffin. I have since made the compote again without the muffins to have with Greek yoghurt – scrummy!

The thing I would say though, is that the method of grating the marzipan is a new one and I don’t think it really worked. The marzipan melted into the muffin and was not noticeable. Its a shame because I chopped up a few squares of marzipan and put them in the last muffin, and they were delicious! I would definitely do this next time.

 The muffins without their pretty toppings.

The recipe comes from Ottolenghi – The Cookbook. Ottolenghi is a food shop with four different branches around London – in Kensington, Belgravia, Islington and Notting Hill. I haven’t yet been to one but from their website it looks such a gorgeous place! Each branch is slightly different, but they are famed for their patisserie and huge meringues. They also have a blog. The two men who run it: Yotam and Tami, are from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and the cookbook is totally lovely. Filled with beautiful photographs and lots of tasty recipes – I can’t believe I have never cooked from it before. A very good read too – I would strongly recommend it! Yotam and Tami also run cookery classes at Leith’s Cookery School. Now, for the recipe...

Plum, marzipan and cinnamon muffins, from Ottolenghi

makes 12

for the compote: 700g ripe red plums, stoned and quartered

60g caster sugar

1cinnamon stick/ 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

for the muffins: 480g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1tsp cinnamon

pinch of salt

200g caster sugar

2 free-range eggs

110g unsalted butter, melted

280ml milk

grated zest of 2 oranges

120g marzipan

icing sugar, for dusting

1. Make the plum compote first. Preheat the oven to 170’C/gas mark 3. Place the plums in a shallow baking dish, add the sugar and cinnamon stick and mix together. Place in the oven and bake for 20mins, until the plums are soft and their skin starts to separate from the flesh (the cooking time varies, depending on the ripeness of the fruit). Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. Put the sugar and eggs in a large mixing bowl and whisk together. Add the milk and butter (make sure it is not too hot) and whisk to combine.

3. Grate the marzipan on the coarse side of a grater and add this to a the batter, together with the orange zest. Now add 80g of the plum compote (pulp and juices) and stir together. Set the rest of the compote aside for later.

4. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the flour mixture into the wet mix until just combined – there may still be a few lumps and bits of flour, this is what you want.

5. Line your muffin tins with paper cases and spoon in the mixture, filling them all the way to the top. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre of the muffin comes out clean. When cool enough to handle, take the muffins out of the tins and leave on a wire rack until cold.

6. Just before serving, dust the tops with a little icing sugar and top with the plum compote.