I have to admit: Until recent years, I was scared to death of these little things.

Are you kidding me: “Prune” in the same sentence with “dessert?” No, thank you. Prune plums are tiny and mean looking. If you don’t know any better, they look like they taste terribly sour.

And, they have a pit.

Call it leftover 8-year-old-fear-of-weird-food rearing its head in my (questionably) grown-up self, but they never seemed to belong in anything that I would even think of ingesting. Much less in dessert. I mean, to sum how I used to feel: Yuck.

I didn’t get over it until well into my late twenties. And I’m still kicking myself that it took me that long.

In recent years, prune plums have become one of my fondest fall darlings. When baked, they’re sweet, sticky, and jammy—and make a perfect filling for a bunch of different desserts.

In this crumble, they’re nestled under a blanket of buttery, crunchy oatmeal topping that’s dotted with sliced almonds.

About prune plums

Prune plums have a brief season, and are around for only a few weeks in the early fall. (Look for them when you start to see pumpkins.)

They’re about the size of an egg and have dark purple or blue skin. Even when ripe, the inside flesh is yellow. When baked, the color from the skins seeps out and turns the cooked fruit a lovely ruby tone.

When buying them, choose plums that are fairly firm—not super soft. Look for smooth skin, and avoid any that have a wrinkle-y or loose skin. They’ll likely be mealy. Ripen prune plums on the counter, then store in the fridge.

I was so excited when they finally showed up at Haymarket, Boston’s biggest public farm market, a few days ago.

If you can’t find prune plums, this crumble is delicious with regular plums, peaches, and even apples. It’s one of those messy, rustic desserts that is great eaten on its own, or with big scoop of ice cream (ginger is my favorite with this).

Italian Prune Plum Crumble

Filling
1 lb. Italian prune plums, pitted and quartered
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
1 1/2 Tbls. flour
2 Tbls. Chambord (or other raspberry/black raspberry liqueur)

Topping
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/3 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup sliced almonds
6 Tbls. butter, cut into small cubes

Makes 1 9-inch round dessert

Grease a 9-inch glass pie pan lightly with oil or butter and set it aside. Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees.

How to deal with the prune plums

Grab your prune plums.

Cut each plum in half.

Remove the pits and stems (and the little hard, knobby thing that the stem is attached to).

Prune plums are easy to pit because they’re a “freestone” fruit—as opposed to their larger, more difficult “clingstone” cousins.

Cut the plums into quarters. Leave the skins on. They melt into the filling as the crumble bakes.

Repeat with the rest of your plums until they’re all pitted and quartered. Put the plum quarters into a medium-sized mixing bowl.

Make the plum tart filling

Toss in the brown sugar and flour.

Add the Chambord (or other raspberry liqueur).

Mix gently until all the ingredients are combined. It won’t seem like it at first, but that little bit of liqueur—plus the juice from the plums—is enough to turn all the dry ingredients into a thick, sugar-y paste.

Transfer the filling to your greased pie pan. Be sure to scrape out any sugar that’s sticking to the bowl.

Your filling should almost fill the pan to the top.

Make the crumb topping for the tart

Put the flour, white sugar, brown sugar, sliced almonds, oatmeal, and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer (or a large mixing bowl, if you’re mixing by hand).

Toss in the butter. (By small cubes, I mean cut the butter about the size of a regular die—or one of those little square Laughing Cow cheese bites.)

Mix on medium-high to break up the butter and incorporate it with the rest of the ingredients. (If you’re not using a stand mixer, squeeze the butter and dry ingredients together with your hands repeatedly to soften the butter a little and smoosh them together.)

You’re aiming for a coarse meal texture.

Like this (odd-sized bits of butter are just fine):

Assemble the crumble!

Sprinkle the crumb topping over the plum mixture.

Try to spread it evenly, but don’t make yourself nuts. This is a rustic dessert. It’s OK if bits of plum are poking through. In fact, the juice they release when baking will help form a pretty pattern on the top of the finished dessert.

Bake, serve, and enjoy!

Pop the pan into your pre-heated 375-degree oven. Bake for about 45 minutes.

You want the topping to be brown and the filling to bubble up on the edges.

Yank it out of the oven when it looks about like this:

Cool it on the counter and serve warm or at room temperature. (It’s good cold, too, but you really don’t get the full flavor of the fruit that way.)

Enjoy!

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You don’t always need a ton of ingredients to make an absolutely mouthwatering dessert. Blueberry pie is one of my favorite summer treats. A few cups of fabulous, fresh fruit. A little sugar to bring out its flavor. A handful of flour to trap all that luscious juice and thicken it into a syrupy sauce.

I think my favorite way to serve blueberry pie is with a big scoop of ginger ice cream. (More on that to come soon.)

This article also provides a step-by-step tutorial for making a double-crust pie (i.e. a pie with a crust on top, as well as on the bottom).

Blueberries have to be one of my favorite summer fruits.

There are a few schools of thought on how to best thicken a fresh berry pie. Some folks use tapioca. Others use cornstarch. I usually prefer to use flour.

That said, this can definitely still be a fairly juicy pie, depending on your berries.

Cold butter: The key to a flaky crust

Be sure that your butter is cold when you make the dough. When the butter is cold, bits of butter flatten out in layers when mixed with flour to make the dough. (If your butter is warm, it will blend completely with the flour.)

Those layers of butter release steam when the crust is baked—which helps make your pastry nice and flaky.

To keep the dough even colder, use a marble board and rolling pin. Chill them if you like. I usually don’t bother with this, and my crusts come out just fine.

Other flavors to add to your blueberry pie

This is a basic recipe. You can add all sorts of different flavors in with the berries. For example, you could add a tablespoon or two of freshly grated ginger or lemon zest.

Homemade Blueberry Pie

For the crust
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup cold butter (that’s 11 Tbls.)
1/4 cup cold water

For the filling
5 cups fresh blueberries (that’s about 3 pints)
1 cup sugar
6 Tbls. flour

Makes 1 9-inch pie

Lightly grease an 9-inch pie plate with butter or oil. Set it aside. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Make the dough for the double-crust pie

Put the flour and salt in the bowl of your food processor. (You can also cut the pastry together by hand using a pastry blender or a couple of forks.)

Toss in the butter.

Pulse them together until the butter and flour are combined and the mixture is fairly uniform. You’re aiming for raggy bits of flour and butter, like this:

Drizzle in the water, pulsing the food processor at the same time. (If you’re making the dough by hand, drizzle with one hand and mix with the other.)

You want the dough to just come together into a smooth-ish ball.

Gather the dough up into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for maybe 20 minutes. (Again, to keep that butter cold so your pastry is flaky.)

Roll out the bottom crust

When the dough is chilled, unwrap it and put it on a lightly floured board.

Whack it in half with a bencher or large, sharp knife.

Put one half back in the fridge. Roll the other half into a ball.

Smoosh it into a flat disk with your hand.

Roll it out so that it’s flat. Keep the dough as even and uniform in thickness as you can.

Some of the edges will split like this. That’s just fine. (You’re eventually going to roll the edges together with the top crust.)

How do you know if your dough is large enough to fit your pan? Just take your pie plate and set it on top of the rolled dough. If you’re using a fairly standard pie plate (i.e. not a deep-dish pan) like my Pyrex pan, your dough should be slightly larger than the pan.

Put the bottom crust in the pie plate

Some folks fold their dough up in quarters like a handkerchief, then unfold it in the dish. I always seem to rip the dough when I do that. Here’s how I get my bottom crust in the pan.

Set your rolling pin on top of the dough, close to one end.

With a bencher, scoot the edge of the dough up.

Flop it over on top of the rolling pin.

Gently, roll the pin back, sliding the dough along with it.

Grab the ends of the rolling pin and slide the dough over your greased pie pan, so that it’s centered.

Don’t make yourself nuts getting the dough perfectly even. You’ll clean it up when you add the top crust.

Toss the blueberries in flour and sugar

Time to make the filling. Put your berries in a large mixing bowl. You could add a squeeze of fresh lemon juice here, if you like.

Toss in the sugar and flour.

With your hands, mix the flour, sugar, and berries together to combine them well.

Pour the mixture into the bottom crust.

With your hands, gently mix the berries around so that the flour/sugar mixture looks fairly evenly distributed. Take the time to do this. If all your flour winds up in one place, you can wind up with lumps in your pie filling.

Roll out the top crust for the pie

Grab your other ball of pie crust dough out of the fridge. Roll it flat just like you did with the bottom crust.

Check it for size the same way you did with the bottom crust.

Roll the top crust on to cover the berry filling.

Your top crust should hang over the edges of your pie pan, like this. (If for some reason it’s too small, just slide it off and roll it a little flatter.)

Trim the top crust a little so that it’s fairly even and round. You want it to hang over the edge of the pie pan by about an inch or so. (Save all the trimmings. Sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and bake them along with the pie for an impromptu treat.)

Seal the edges of the pie crust

Put the top and bottom crusts together, and roll them under. (By doing this, you’re sealing the two crusts together—and keeping your filling totally contained so it won’t leak out when baked.)

You want the crust to look about like this:

Keep rolling the crust under like this until you’ve gone completely around the pie.

When you’re done, you shouldn’t be able to see any of the berry filling.

Poke a little hole in the center of the pie with a sharp knife. The filling will need to release some steam as it cooks.

Cut a few slits in the top, also. You can get really fancy with this (make squiggly cuts, etc.), or just make a few slashes. Again, this is to help release steam.

You can also get fancy with those leftover scraps of dough. I like to grab a small piece…

…and roll it into a tube…

And make a little design around the center hole. (Just rub a little water on the bottom of the dough to make it stick.) Again, this is purely aesthetic.

And there you have it! One double-crust blueberry pie, ready for the oven!

Bake the pie in a 425-degree oven

Slide your pie into your preheated 425-degree oven. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Your pie is done when the crust is golden brown and filling has started to bubble up through the top slits.

Cool the pie in the pan before serving. (You can serve it right away, but the hotter the filling is, the more it will ooze.)

Enjoy!

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