This is just to say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
–William Carlos Williams
One can’t not read this poem and not break a smile. It has been countlessly parodied and even inscribed on a wall in the city of Den Hague, Dutch country. Revenge obviously couldn’t have been any sweeter or colder than that of the plums.
The most delicious plums are juicy, sweet, and burgundy in color. When ripen, they have a heady and sophisticated fragrance that calls to a red wine or a port. Rather than stuffing them into a pie, I prefer baking them into a ruby, jammy mash underneath a crisp or spreading them atop a gooey pile of cake so that their juice smothers and sweetens it, and then topping it all off with a generous dollop of vanilla ice-cream.
There are variations beside a crisp. Whereas a crisp includes rolled oats, a crumble does not. If a cake-like topping is desired, then it’s a cobbler. A slump is a stove-top version of a cobbler, cooked in a cast-iron pan and collapses, or slumps, down as the fruits wither into mush. And finally, a pandowdy is cooked fruits under a broken pastry crust. It’s really all about the fruits, and a garden variety, such as Satsuma plum, will outperform those from grocery stores and farmers markets.
1½ lb plums, pitted and cut into wedges, ¾ cup brown sugar, 2 tbsp wheat flour, 3 tbsp bourbon.
Crisp topping: ¾ cup AP wheat flour, ½ cup brown sugar, ½ cup rolled oats, ¼ cup chopped walnuts, ¼ tsp salt, 1 stick or 4 oz cold butter, diced.
Stir 2 tbsp of flour into ¾ cup of brown sugar, then mix it into the plum wedges along with the liquor and set aside. Use a stand-mixer with paddle attachment over low speed, or a fork to mix and mash the crisp ingredients until crumbly and the butter is the size of peas.
Pour the plum mixture into a ceramic or a glass baking pan, scatter the topping evenly over the plums. 350F, 40 minutes until the fruits bubble and it is brown atop.
A spoon cake is an inverted cobbler where the fruits are atop the cake. I’m not certain why it’s called a spoon cake since most cakes are eaten with a spoon. Melted butter and juice sweated from the sugar-macerated plums give it a dense texture, differentiating it from a standard cake. Additionally, the sugared fruit juice settles at the bottom and gets cooked into a thick and gooey caramel sauce. It is decadent with vanilla ice-cream.
1 lb plums, pitted and cut into wedges, ⅔ cup brown sugar, ¼ tsp salt.
Cake: 1 cup AP wheat flour, 1 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp salt, ⅓ cup brown sugar, ½ cup warm milk, 1 stick or 4 oz butter, melted.
Macerate the plums with the sugar and salt well ahead of time to allow for juice sweating. In a bowl, whisk the flour with baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the warm milk, melted butter, and brown sugar. Then incorporate the flour mixture into the liquid until just combined.
Line an 8-inch square baking pan. Then pour the cake batter into the pan and spread evenly to fill all corners. Spread the plum wedges and juice on top, tilting the pan so that the juice covers the cake top. 350F, 35 minutes.
**Watch This is just to say in depth on PBS.
hardlyplaying.blog 