Peach and Plum Crumble

This crumble was both insanely easy and insanely good.  My sister and I had each eyed it while browsing a magazine on our Nooks, and when she visited for the July 4th holiday we thought the simplicity made it perfect.  Easy and quick mean so much when I'm chasing around an 18-month-old niece for days.  Seriously.  The day they left, I proceeded to nap an hour, then went to bed way early and stayed unconscious for 10 hours.  Mothers, and especially blogger mothers, you have my utmost respect.

But even busy mothers and anybody who doesn't like fussing with rolling out pie dough can make this crumble.  You just slice up peaches and plums and toss them with sugar, cornstarch, and salt -- don't even bother peeling the fruit!  Then quickly mix up a crumb topping and scatter it over the top, and it goes in the oven.  My love of traditional pie crust made me skeptical a crumb topping could satisfy, but we three adults were so mad about the topping we agreed it should be doubled next time.

The plums were our own addition to the recipe, and they turned the crumble a beautiful purple and gave it some tartness.  Sis and I thought the filling was too sweet, though Joe thought it was all right.  So on this second try I doubled the crumb topping but reduced the sugar.  Summer perfection.

I'm up for visiting the beach again too, with or without Audrey.

Plum Skillet Cake

Sometimes it's fun to conquer baking challenges -- braided bread, lattice-top pies, croissants -- but sometimes it's nice just to mix together a few ingredients and throw them in the oven. Here a cake batter is easily stirred up, poured into a skillet, and topped with fruit. No fuss, and a stunning and delicious dessert.

The cake is simple but tasty, and the cast iron gives the edges a nice crust. The plums, which I can find bitter in their fresh form, mellow out as they bake to become lightly sweet and tart, even the peel. A dollop of whipped cream makes a slice even better.

Some important tips to share: Wait until the cake is halfway done baking before adding the plums.  The top row is the first cake I made, and you can see that the beautiful plums sank into the batter as the cake baked.  Also, the plums were only in the center of the cake, so the outer edges didn't have any of the delicious fruit.  In the bottom row, I added the plums after 15 minutes of baking, and you can see that they barely sank in.  I also increased the number of plums to four, so every slice of cake has plenty of fruit.

Update: This post made the Foodbuzz Top 9!  Thanks for all the buzz!

This post was shared with:
Whatcha Whipped Up Wednesdays
Sweets for a Saturday