Ina Garten's Plum Crumb Tart

Take advantage of stone fruit and make the best plum tart you can ever imagine! A fabulous and easy, one-bowl recipe with few ingredients that can be made in advance.

When you realize there are plums in your fridge and remember you bookmarked a delicious recipe like this one, you simply go into the kitchen and start measuring.

Stone fruit - plums, apricots, peaches, nectarines, cherries - will be in season soon, and we all want to have a few easy recipes on hand. This is by far one of the best, though a look at other recipes from this category might uncover another favorite.

'How do you make the perfect plum tart? With perfect fruit and a killer recipe.' I agree wholeheartedly.

Fresh plums

Red plums (image below), the most common ones found everywhere are great for this recipe. Inside the color can go from yellow to purple-red (I just invented a color I think) and have a small stone pit in the center, hence the stone fruit category name.

If you have a favorite seasonal plum, by all means, use it. Be sure the fruit is acidic to balance the sweet, crunchy crumble. Here is a good read if you want to learn more about types of plums and experiment with different ones.

Preparing the plums

The red plums need to be cored (that is taking out the pit), cut in half and then into thirds.
The easiest way to core them - something I found out while making this Plum Hazelnut Cake - is with an apple corer, It is a life saver and a reason to buy the gadget, let me tell you. It works great with apricots too.

Be sure you don't have very large pieces of fruit as they will make it more difficult to eat and take longer to soften while baking. A good, sharpened kitchen knife is another must when making fruit desserts.

Crumb base and topping

You mix them together in one bowl! One of the reasons this tart recipe is amazing and becomes a favorite fast is that you make a crumble and use it as base and topping. One mixture, two uses. How's that for easiness?

As with most crumbles, we start with the usual three ingredients: butter, sugar (brown in this case), and flour. But then we go a little further and add ground almonds and an egg yolk. This last ingredient will make the crumble incredibly crunchy, you have no idea what a single egg yolk can achieve here.

Best tips for the crust

1. Make sure to press a fairly thick side wall and also pay special attention to the union between the wall and the bottom. This is very important to ensure it will stand firm when you take it out of the pan and doesn't break.
2. You can also bake it, without the plums,for 10 minutes to make extra sure that the shell hardens enough to unmold well. During baking, the butter, egg and dry ingredients will meld and the tart dough will come out firmer.

So, if you find yourself buying debatable tasting stone fruit, bake a tart like this one.

Never mind if you have a combination of hard, sandy, or over-ripe fruit. They all work fine together. It's one of the reasons why crumble recipes are so popular.

It transforms your little rocks into a great dessert, with a toasted nuttiness in every bite that is even better topped with ice cream. Or served warm with cream directly from the container as we do in my family.

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Let me know in the comments below if you made this recipe and loved it, and also if you had issues, so we can troubleshoot together. I love to hear what you think, always. Thanks for being here, it's much appreciated.
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