What’s better than a fruit crumble? Fruit crumble with marzipan in the topping! We’ve been playing around with this recipe all summer, first using strawberries, then the fleeting British cherries, before moving onto apricots and peaches.
But we think it’s exquisite with plums. We use a blend of super-sweet Victorias and bruise-coloured purple varieties for body and colour. The crumble incorporates chopped marzipan which brings melty, fudgy almond nuggets to the dish, and flaked almonds, for added crunch. It is the actual dream – and looks very pretty, with its magenta juices peeking out at the edges.
Serve with custard or vanilla ice cream.
Ingredients (serves 6-8)
- 600g mixed plums, de-stoned
- 100g caster sugar
- 2 tsp cornflour
- Splash of Kirsch, Port or Madeira wine
For the topping:
200g plain flour
100g rolled oats
50g brown sugar
150g unsalted butter
100g marzipan
3 tbsp flaked almonds
Large pinch sea salt
Leaves from 2 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
Method
1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C
2. Roughly dice the plums – around 1.5-2cm will do. Decant into a baking dish they’ll fill generously in a thick layer and add the sugar, cornflour and booze (if using). Turn with a spoon.
3. For the topping, add the flour, oats, sugar and butter to a large bowl. Use your fingers to press the butter into the other ingredients until you have chunky crumbs. Roughly chop the marzipan (around 1cm pieces) and add this, along with the flaked almonds, salt and thyme if using. Add the tiniest splash of water and press parts of the crumble so some are bigger than others – we like the contrast of little sandy areas where the juices are soaked up, and biscuitty bites. Top the fruit with the crumble.
4. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the topping has coloured and you can see the plums have broken down and softened. Allow to cool in the dish for 20-30 minutes before serving.
