Plum and walnut crostata

Inspired by Kate Young who was inspired by Mrs Cripps from The Light Years

I have decided that I like plums infinitely better cooked than raw, especially in crostata or cake, but also in the form of gelato and jam. I like to start plum season by making Marian Burros’ famous plum torte (below). It is always a hit and the recipe is always asked for, it’s a beloved recipe from The New York Times, where it was first printed in 1983 and has been repeatedly offered every autumn. So if you can’t access the NY Times recipe, just search for it and you’ll find it everywhere.

But luckily the last of the plums are still holding on over here and I still have an overflowing bowl of plums and I knew I had to do something about it. In stepped this crostata.

This idea isn’t totally mine. I was flipping through my friend Kate Young’s cookbook, The Little Library Parties (2022) recently and saw a photo (by the brilliant Yuki Sugiura, who also did some of the photos of Gohan for me) of a pastry lined with ground hazelnuts and a bit of sugar topped with halved plums.

It was in my head for a while and so, during a recent cooking class, I pulled out that memory and made this cake, though with first of the new season walnuts, which we picked up at the market in large scoops and, back in the kitchen, cracked by hand (and by hand I mean with our hands! Do you know this trick? You just need two walnuts, line them up at the seams and close one hand over the top of the hand holding the walnuts and decisively pull them together. One of them with crack the other open).

But back to Kate’s plum tart — she in turn borrowed the idea from fictional Mrs Cripp’s from The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard, a novel set in Sussex in 1937 and the first of a series known as The Cazalet Chronicles.

Quick but important side note: If you do not know Kate Young, maybe you’ve heard of her as Baking Fiction, or The Little Library. You might guess then, that Kate’s thing is books. In fact, it’s one of the things I have always loved about Kate’s writing — she quotes descriptions of food out of novels, takes inspiration from something she’s read, and then turns them into recipes. Then after writing several cookbooks inspired by novels, she decided to finally write a novel herself — her debut novel, Experienced, published earlier this year, is a queer romcom set in Bristol.

If you like books and food too (and Italy, as I suspect you do), you might know about Still Life by Sarah Winman, which some of you know I had the pleasure of being a consultant for — I got to read Sarah’s unedited manuscript and put my Florentine knowledge into use. One of the things I did was help Sarah describe the food at the time and somewhere along the way, an artichoke flan appears and you’ll find a similar one in The Little Library Parties. I also love that Kate has, after the recipe index, a reading index! So in case you just wanted to browse through what books, writers or characters she mentions, you can flip there and find Eliza Acton, Alice in Wonderland, Babette’s Feast, Bridget Jones’ Diary, The Great Gatsby, Heartburn, and so much more (even Possum Magic, a nod to her Australian upbringing).

I love hearing about books I don’t know (as much as I love hearing about books I love) and this is one of those; I had never heard of The Light Years or The Cazalet Chronicles but it’s clearly something I would love based on what Kate says about it:

“It is everything I love in a book - a big sprawling cast of intergenerational characters, a country house, plenty of food, and set in the last years of the interwar period. It engenders passion and enthusiasm in my friends who have read it, who tend to furiously identify with one or other of the characters…

There are an extraordinary number of memorable meals contained in the book: big dinners with the family, bowls of raspberries and cream for the children on their arrival at the house, picnics by the seaside. For a dinner party in the not-too-distant future, I am now planning to poach a salmon, and serve it with peas and new potatoes, as Mrs Cripps the cook does, on the first day of the summer holidays. But, as our summer draws to a close, it was this plum tart that held my attention.”

In fact my friend Sophie Hansen of

Something to Eat and Something to Read

has also been inspired by Mrs Cripps’ poached salmon with peas and new potatoes and planned a whole (Australian, in other words, summery) Christmas menu — an easy, gentle one, as Sophie says:

A Christmas lunch via Mrs Cripps

In another version of Kate’s plum tart that you can find via the Guardian, Kate makes a proper frangipane — 125 grams each of butter, almonds, sugar, plus an egg, whizzed up together into a delicious paste — in which she piles the plums. I love this kind of tart with figs too and have an old recipe from my blog that I’ve always loved but have only made a few times since.

The version in Kate’s party book is really more appealing to me: it’s a lazy version of frangipane, it’s an idea of frangipane. You don’t have to make the frangipane and clean out a food processor after. You just blitz some nuts — any, Kate calls for hazelnuts in the party book version, I had fresh walnuts and would do that again, mix with the sugar and then all you do is sprinkle that over the base of the pastry. That’s ALL. It’s perfect. 

In fact, Kate writes, “I wanted something simple, something free-form, something that didn’t demand a loose-bottomed tart pan or anything beyond a baking sheet. I’ve rolled this pastry out with a bottle of wine in the absence of a rolling pin.” She really is speaking my language here.

And although it’s not exactly an English plum tart (so no doubt not at all what Mrs Cripps would have made), I think sometimes all you need is someone to mention something they ate or cooked to get an idea for yourself.

They all had dinner - fourteen of them round the immense three-pedestal table extended to its uttermost and even then they were crammed round it. They ate four roast chickens, bread sauce, mashed potato and runner beans followed by plum tart and what the Duchy called Shape - blancmange. — from The Light Years

I think I will immediately try this also with pears. But I think it would be a really great base for whatever you have lying around — apples would be lovely. Kate has mentioned it would be good with rhubarb, ground ginger and pistachios or red grapes, cinnamon and walnuts. I’m up for all of them.

Plum and walnut crostata inspired by Little Library Parties by Kate Young

Not having the book in front of me when I made it, I used my favourite shortcrust pastry recipe, but if you don’t have a favourite, Kate’s, below, is wonderfully simple — the main difference is I use a whole egg plus a yolk, as well as about 50 grams more flour. I also went overboard with the nuts and I would do that again! Kate’s original called for 75 grams (1/2 cup) hazelnuts.

• 200 grams plain flour

• Pinch salt

• 1 tsp ground cardamom

• 1 tbs sugar

• 120 grams cold butter, cubed

• 1-2 tablespoons iced water

For the filling:

• 400 grams plums

• 150 grams shelled walnuts

• 45 grams (1/4) cup sugar

• 2 tablespoons melted butter

• 1 tablespoon raw or brown sugar

Make the pastry by rubbing

To make the pastry, I always use my hands but you can do this in a food processor if you like. Place flour, salt, cardamom and sugar in a bowl with the butter. With your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until you get a crumbly mixture and there are no more visible pieces of butter. Bring together with your hands, adding as much or as little of the cold water as needed for it to come together. Chill the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Cut the plums in half and remove the stones.

Blitz or bash the nuts until finely ground — it only takes a few pulses in a food processor. I quite like the uneven chunks of nuts in this so I make sure not too over-blend and I also think freshly ground nuts are a thousand times nicer than pre-ground packets, which tend to be very dry and very (not to mention cheaper). Mix with the sugar.

When the dough has rested, roll it out on a lightly floured baking sheet until about 3mm thick. Sprinkle the walnut and sugar mixture over the base of the pastry, leaving at least 3cm (even 5) for a border. Place the plums, skin side up and fold the edges over for a rustic look (alternatively you could also do this whole thing in a neat pie tin).

Brush the pastry with the butter and sprinkle over the raw sugar — this makes such a lovely crusty top. Bake until the plums are slumped and bubbling and the crust is golden brown, about 50 minutes at 180°C. This was wonderful with some cream.