These gorgeous little ruby red plums are extra sweet because they were hand-picked by friends. Jordan and her husband have an enormous plum tree in their front yard, which hasn’t yielded much fruit in years’ past, but this year is different. This year, the tree’s limbs are drooping under the weight of ripening plums. Walking along the sidewalk to their front porch is like walking through a purple polka-dotted candy land.
I wasn’t sure what to do with my plums once I picked them up. Obviously, I had to make something beautiful out of them, something worthy of my friends’ plum-picking efforts. I really have the sweetest friends. I thought the plums would make a beautiful plum upside-down cake (I think you could make one out of this honey-sweetened almond cake recipe) or sorbet (which reminded me of this peach and raspberry sorbet from two summers ago). I thought about making chia jam, too, but I’ve doing a lot of those lately. I’ve since found out that Tessa turned her plums into a gorgeous clafoutis. Brilliant!
I finally settled on my default fruity dessert: a crisp. One can never go wrong with a fuss-free fruit crisp. I topped my fuchsia, honey-sweetened plum crisp with a layer of pistachio, oat and almond meal crumble. I opted for a gluten-free topping so I could share it with friends, buuuuut I ended up eating it all by myself. By the way, reheated crisp makes a fantastic breakfast. Just add plain yogurt.
A couple of notes before you start baking. My plums were super juicy, and I made the mistake of transferring all of their juice to the baking dish. That’s why some of the topping sunk down into the crisp. If your plums are super juicy, too, just scoop up the sliced plums with your hands and plop them into the dish, rather than scraping all of the juice in there with them. Check the recipe notes for suggestions on how to make this crisp vegan and/or nut free. If you don’t have almond meal on hand, check the nut-free notes for an alternative topping that uses regular flour. You can substitute any nuts for the pistachios. I buy shelled pistachios at Whole Foods, but they are pretty pricy. Slivered almonds would be a more affordable alternative. You really can’t go wrong with a crisp, so don’t hesitate to play with the recipe.
