This fruit crisps recipes uses my favorite stone fruits: Peaches and plums make great fruit crisp recipes!
My grandmother called me the other day to tell me that she had a bumper crop of plums, and that I better set aside some time soon to come pick them.
Apparently no one else in the family had much need for them. Which honestly surprised me. This family is full of people who garden and cook and bottle their produce.
When I got to Grandma’s house a few days later, I was sad to see that two of the main branches on that plum tree had broken. The weight of the large amounts of fruit had weakened them, and a recent wind storm did them in. It’s going to take a while for that tree to recover.
This means, I better make as much plum jam as I can while I have the plums to do it.
And as long as I have the equivalent of two 5-gallon buckets full of fresh plums in my house, I suppose some plum desserts are in order, too.
I adapted my favorite peach crisp recipe to incorporate the plums, and this delightful late summer dessert was born.
So, funny story… you know how peaches and plums both taste fantastic with almond extract? (If you ask me, almost every food tastes awesome with almond extract. I’m tempted to drink the stuff straight sometimes.)
My bottle of almond extract looks exactly like my bottle of peppermint extract. And when I was making the filling for this lovely fruit crisp, I accidentally put peppermint instead of almond extract in it. Oops. I was kind of heartbroken to have to throw out my filling and start over.
In case you were wondering, peaches and plums do NOT taste fantastic with peppermint extract.
I was thrilled to be able to share this treat with my friends. We sat around the table, and traded ideas for using up the summer fruit harvest. One friend has a plum tree of her own, and this year used it to make a bunch of fruit leather like this.
Which is what I’ll be doing, if I have enough left over after making all the jam. And probably a couple more crisps! Without peppermint, of course.
Want more? Check out these stone fruit recipes!
 Peach Limeade |
 Peach Cobbler for One |
 Plum Breakfast Bars |
- ½ cup butter, melted
- ½ cup flour
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 cup quick oats
- ½ cup finely chopped walnuts
- about 10-12 ripe plums
- about 3-4 ripe peaches
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup water
- 3 tablespoons corn starch
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 tablespoon butter
- For the crust, combine all ingredients. Place on a baking sheet, and bake at 350F for about 15 minutes, until brown. Remove from oven, but leave oven on.
- Meanwhile, for the filling, dice 1 peach and about 4 plums and place in a saucepan. Add sugar, water, and cornstarch and bring to a boil. Use a potato masher to mash cooked fruit. Let boil about a minute, until thick. Remove from heat, add extract and butter.
- Slice the remaining peaches and plums and place in a large bowl. Pour filling over the top, and stir to coat.
- Break up the crisp with a fork. Place about half the crisp in the bottom of a 9x9 pan. Pour fruit filing over the top. Top with remaining crisp.
- Bake an additional 25-30 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream or half and half.
