Mike Van de Elzen: Spiced plum crostata

The Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin

Mike’s website – goodfromscratch.co.nz
Welcome back people,
Hope we all had a great break!
This week I'm talking about plums! we have loads of them ready to go on the farm and have been featuring them in the classes. There's so many things you can do with plums like.
1. Bake them in some tin foil with star anise and cinnamon and serve with soft cream
2. Stew them down and turn into a puree to spoon over char grilled venison back straps
3. Reduce them down with honey and lemons to make up a plum soda syrup
Its endless, but today I want to make something we did yesterday in a cooking class, Spiced Plum Crostata.
A crostata is an Italian baked open tart. Being open opposed to a closed pie whilst baking brings some benefits. It allows the plums to dry out and concentrate on the flavour during cooking.
They just work so well as they are easy to make cook quickly, are super tasty and work really well when you have a dinner party of guests to cook for.
Enjoy.
Spiced plum crostata
1 1/2 cups flour
3 tablespoons caster sugar
pinch of salt
150gm unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla paste or essence
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup water
Filling
12 plums
1 cup cranberries
3 tbsp brandy
4 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tbsp icing sugar
Place the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl and mix until well combined; slowly add in the butter and rub in your hands until the butter becomes pea-like in size. Slowly add the vanilla and almond extracts and water until the dough becomes moistened and comes together. Set aside.
Make up the spiced plum mix.
Soak cranberries in brandy and a touch of warm water for 10 minutes. Cut the plums in half and remove the stone. Mix with brown sugar and cinnamon. Drain the cranberries well, toss into the plums.
Preheat the oven 180 degrees. Roll out the crostata dough out to the size a small plate and approx. 5mm thick. Lay onto greaseproof paper lined tray.
Spoon the well-drained plum mixture into the centre, leaving a 5cm border. Fold up the sides of the dough. Brush water around the outside and sprinkle with icing sugar.
Place into an oven and cook for 35 minutes, if golden. Remove and allow to cool.
Serve with vanilla ice-cream.

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