Halloween Plum and Blackberry Crumble with Gingerbread Men
Halloween Plum and Blackberry Crumble with Gingerbread Men is a traditional British recipe for a classic red-coloured plum and blackberry crumble dessert garnished with gingerbread men for Halloween. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic British version of: Halloween Plum and Blackberry Crumble with Gingerbread Men.
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Here is a twist on the traditional crumble, just for Halloween. The combination of red-fleshed plums and blackberries gives a nice red colour to the crumble giving a ‘blood’ colour. If liked you can give the gingerbread men scary expressions. Frozen blackberries are available year-round her, but red-fleshed plums are imported from Spain and have a short season, so I pit them and freeze them as I use them both for this and for my Christmas gin.
Ingredients:
For the gingerbread:
40 g butter
40 g soft light brown sugar
2 tbsp. golden syrup (or corn syrup)
100 g plain flour, plus extra to dust
1 tsp. ground ginger
For the crumble :
450 g blackberries
450 g red-fleshed plums, pitted and coarsely chopped
100ml gingerbread syrup
100 ml orange juice blended with 2 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)
125 g plain flour
50 g butter, chilled and cubed
50 g caster sugar
1 tsp. ground ginger
Method:
Begin with the gingerbread: Combine the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a small pan over low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture no longer feels gritty.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour and ground ginger. Form a well in the centre and pour in the butter mixture then stir to combine. Using your hands, bring the ingredients together to form a soft dough and knead briefly until smooth. Wrap in clingfilm (plastic wrap) and chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
In the meantime, preheat oven to 190°C (170°C fan) gas mark 5 and line a large baking tray with baking parchment. Once the dough has chilled, turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and roll out to 3mm thick. Stamp out gingerbread men with a 6cm cutter, re-rolling the trimmings as needed, you should get about 15 in total. Transfer to the prepared baking tray, and, using a cocktail stick, score faces on to the gingerbread men, going almost, but not quite all the way through the dough. Bake for 8 minutes until coloured a light golden brown.
Remove from oven and re-score the face markings with a cocktail stick, then leave to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. At the end of this time transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. At the same time, reduce oven temperature to 180°C (160°C fan) gas mark 4.
For the crumble filling, mix together the blackberries, plums, gingerbread syrup and orange juice then turn the fruit mixture into a 1.1l pie dish.
For the crumble topping, sift the flour into a bowl. Add the butter and rub into the flour with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and ground ginger. Spoon the crumble mixture over the fruit then transfer the crumble to your oven and bake for 45-50min, until golden brown and bubbling.
Stand six of the gingerbread men in the top of the crumble and serve hot accompanied by custard, ice cream or cream. Serve the remaining gingerbread men as an accompaniment.
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