Sugar Plum Crostata

Google sugar plums and you will get all kinds of confectionary recipes. When I think of sugar plums I get an Ani DiFranco song in my head and a yearning for those last weeks of summer where I can feel the season slipping away and endeavour to enjoy it’s bounty to the max.

Sugar Plums are small, wonkily football shaped with pale yellow honey sweet flesh. Their seeds are quite small making these tiny fruits packed with juiciness and flavour.

How better to make use of the short sugar plum season, other than to eat them raw, is to whip up a quick, tasty rustic tart. Cooking sugar plums softens and mellows the flavour, deliciously.

This sugar plum crostata is inspired by these beautiful tarts by Spicy Icecream. I thought that the juice would come out of the fruit and make the pastry bases soggy, but my fear was unfounded. The fruit softened and became juicy – I could see the liquid coming out during cooking, and I thought I should have mixed a little corn flour through to soak up the juices, but the hardened and crispy base remained intact. 

These tarts are quick, simple and delicious. I have some pastry stashed in the freezer to make some more, now, at the end of summer, the stonefruit is often better when they’re lightly cooked. With the pastry already made, a tart like this comes together quickly and looks and tastes a lot more sophisticated than it really is.

 Sugar Plum Crostata
Adapted from Spicy Ice Cream’s Crostata.
Makes 4 smallish tarts

For Pastry:
250g unsalted butter, very cold, cut into small cubes
1/2 cup water
1/2 t salt
2 1/2 cup plain flour 

juice of 1 lime
sugar to taste
500g sugar plums (or more, or less), stones removed.
handful of roughly chopped almonds.
1 egg yolk and 2T milk
Place butter in freezer. Mix salt with water and also place in freezer leave for about 10 mins (I left this for too long and the butter was impossibly hard). Sift flour and rub butter in with your fingertips. When it looks like course breadcrumbs mix most of the water in and form into a ball (you may need all the water). Put onto a floured surface and press through with the heel of your hand, kneed lightly for combine butter through. When combined wrap in glad wrap and rest in fridge for half an hour. Split into four and roll each portion into a rough circle, cover and rest in fridge for 15 mins.
Meanwhile, wash the fruit then halve and deseed them. Mix fruit with lime juice and sugar to taste. Place 1/4 of fruit in each pastry base, leaving a bit of an edge on the pastry circle. Create an edge for your tart by folding the edges up and gathering the edges so the pastry covers a bit of the fruit. Sprinkle with almonds, mix yolk with milk and brush the pastry with the resulting eggwash.
Cook in a hot oven (200C) until the pastry is crispy and the fruit has softened. Eat warm with cream or icecream. Keeps for a few days in a sealed container in the fridge.