Cardamon Plum Crumble

The last Bank Holiday of the year usually signifies the end of summer, but today felt like the first day of Autumn with a distinct chill in the air. Ever the optimist, I’m still hoping for a late Indian summer to arrive, but today was definitely a day for warming the cockles and a little inspiration.

I don’t grow a great deal of fruit and veg in my garden, but we have a plum tree tucked away in the back corner that faithfully produces fruit every year without too much fuss. It’s a bit of an unusual fruit  – the small perfect ping-pong-ball shaped and sized plums remain green even when ripe. They usually remain pretty tart to the bite even when they’re soft too. Perfect for a crumble.

I know it’s not strictly Indian, but I thought I would share my little Indian twist on a classic British pudding. Cardamon Plum Crumble.

Cardamon – as I’m sure you know is a great Indian spice. It’s a warming spice (not hot like chilli – more earthy like nutmeg perhaps), and it’s traditionally used in savoury, but also in sweet dishes in India. It’s also used in Chai – proper milky Indian tea (which is actually more like hot creamy milk, with spice and a some tea leaves!).

So why not use Cardamon in a classic crumble, instead of cinnamon or nutmeg? Hmmm. Let the experiment begin…

So I’m afraid I didn’t really weigh ingredients. These are guestimates – but crumble is fairly visual. I picked about 2 Lbs of plums  – washed and stoned (the plums, not me).

I took around 10 dried Green Cardamon Pods. I crushed them with pestle and mortar and threw away the shells. I then ground up the little seeds to powder. I mixed half the powder into a quarter cup of orange juice, and poured both over the plums in a baking dish.

These plums are not very juicy so the orange juice works to add a little extra moisture. I used about 100g of soft brown sugar over the top of the plums.

The Crumble:

I think crumble tastes better the more butter there is. Funny that. But if this winter is as bad as, well the year before last, then its good to start fattening up a little bit!

About 300g of plain flour, and 250g of butter. I used guess work for the crumble as basically you can tell if your fruit needs more of a covering. Max-out the amount of butter your flour can take.

The crumble should look like little mini popped-popcorn kernals (not powdery breadcrumbs!). To this I added a further 200g of brown sugar – mix this in with a fork so the crumbs do not form into a dough.

And then mix in the rest of the cardamon powder.

Cover the plums with the crumble mixture and bake in the oven for around 30 – 40 minutes at 180 degrees.

The juice will pour over the top of the crumble and leave a gorgeous sticky mess.

Serve hot. Yum.

I think the cardamon works really well. It adds a new depth to an old favourite.

You may want to add even more! Let me know if you give it a go. Would love to know what you think of it too.