As you know if you read this blog, I love plums.
I asked ChatGPT to write a haiku about plums.
Here it is.
Crimson orbs of joy,
sweet tang dances on my tongue—
summer’s kiss in fruit.
Summer’s kiss. What a beautiful metaphor capturing the delight of biting into a red, juicy, tart plum. Maybe ChatGPT isn’t soulless after all. (OK. I’m just kidding about that last part–the soulless part.)
Because I love plums so much you can find a number of plum recipes here on Blue Cayenne. Just type plums into the search bar and you will find a collection of plum recipes. Here is a particularly great one, Ina Garten’s Plum Tart: Plum Tart.
This recipe is from Samantha Seneviratne’s cookbook Bake Smart. You can buy this book through your local bookstore or on Amazon here.
Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.
Plum and Rose Pie Bars With Almonds
Ingredients
- For the Crust:
- 14 T. unsalted butter (cold, cut into pieces)
- 3/4 C. almonds (sliced)
- 1/2 C. brown sugar (dark)
- 2 1/2 C. all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 t. baking powder
- 3/4 t. kosher salt
- 1 large egg
- For the Jam:
- 6 small red plums (pitted and chopped)
- 1/2 C. granulated sugar
- 1 T. cornstarch
- 1 1/2 t. fresh lemon juice
- 2 t. rose water
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Step 2 Prepare a square 8 or 9 inch baking pan by greasing it (or spraying it with cooking spray and lining the pan with parchment paper. Cut the parchment paper larger than the pan and let it hang over two sides of the pan. This will give you handles to use to lift the cake out of the pan when it is baked.
- Step 3 To prepare the crust, use your food processor to process the almonds and the brown sugar. You want the almonds to be finely ground.
- Step 4 Add the flour, baking powder and salt to the almond mixture and pulse to combine. Then, add butter chunks and pulse to combine. Add the butter and pulse to combine. Add the egg and pulse to combine. The mixture you will have made will be crumbly. Press about 2/3 of this mixture into the prepared pan creating an even layer. Put this into the refrigerator while you are preparing the jam.
- Step 5 When you are ready to proceed, bake the crust for about half an hour until it is golden brown.
- Step 6 To make the jam, prepare plums and combine them with sugar and cornstarch in a saucepan. Heat the mixture until it is bubbling and cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes. You want the plum jam to have thickened at bit. Cook longer if you need to to thicken the jam. Once the jam has thickened, remove it from the heat and stir in the fresh lemon juice and rose water. Allow jam to cool a bit.
- Step 7 Spread the jam (about 1 1/2 C.) over the baked crust. Scatter the remaining crumb mixture over the top of the jam. Bake for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack before removing the bars (using the parchment handles) from the pan and slicing.
