When Fruit Falls off the Tree, Make a Tart

Last night, while minding my own business in my own living room, a neighbor knocked on the door and handed me a shopping bag filled with Santa Rosa plums. I believe these plums, a consequence of his backyard tree, were in retaliation for all the cucumbers I foisted on him last summer.

But they were gorgeous, deep-purple plums, their skins almost bursting with juice. I set them on the kitchen counter, where the warmth of the evening lifted their fragrance, begging me to eat them or turn them into pastry.

So pastry they became. I have a list of pies and cakes that I must make every year when the appropriate fruit is ripe, and plums demand that I make plomukaka, or purple plum tart. This recipe, from Beatrice Ojakangas’s The Great Scandinavian Baking Book, is too easy. The butter for both the crust and the filling need not be hard-cold, but it should not be soft.

Dough

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1-1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons ice water

Filling

1 pound fresh plums, cut into quarters and pitted

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

1/3 cup brown sugar

Preheat oven to 425°. For the dough, combine the flour and sugar, then cut in the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles cornmeal. Quickly stir in the water and form into a ball. Roll out into a 12-inch circle and place the pastry inside a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Turn the edges over so the rim is double thickness.

Arrange the plum quarters, skin side up, over the dough. Combine the remaining ingredients until well blended, but still crumb-like, and sprinkle over the plums. Bake for 20 or 25 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Cool slightly; serve while it’s still warm.