Plum Pie with Rosemary
I’ve now (with a lot of help) made a traditional, from-scratch flaky pie crust. And it was so good I don’t know if I can still recommend my pat-in-a-pan version.
The recipe
Yield: 8 slices
Time: 2 hours, plus cooling time
Ingredients
Crust:
1 and ½ c (187 g) flour
2 tbsp (32 g) sugar
½ tsp (5 g) salt
2 tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 stick (115 g) salted butter
3 tbsp (45 g) heavy cream or milk
Pie:
2 lbs (900 g) plums (about 6 large or 8 small)
½ c–1 c (108–216 g) sugar
4 tbsp (38 g) cornstarch
1 and ½ tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
¼ tsp (2 g) salt
½ tsp (2 g) vanilla extract
Vanilla ice cream, for serving
Instructions
Crust:
1. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and rosemary in a 9-inch pie pan and mix with a fork to combine.
2. Melt the butter in the microwave (about 30 seconds). Add the cream or milk to the butter and beat with a fork to combine.
3. Add the butter to the dry ingredients and mix well with a fork until there are no floury spots remaining.
4. Pat the pie crust evenly along the sides and bottom of the pan.
Filling:
1. Wash plums thoroughly, then chop into ½-inch slices. (No need to peel them.)
2. Place the plums in a large mixing bowl. Taste a plum to gauge how sweet it is. If it’s very sweet, add ½ c of sugar. If it’s very sour, add 1 c. If it’s somewhere in between, add ¾ c.
3. Add the cornstarch, rosemary, salt, and vanilla to the plums.
4. Stir well to combine until the plums are well-coated and the mixture looks even.
5. Pour the plum mixture into the pie crust.
6. Bake at 425°F for 30 minutes, then lower the heat to 375°F and bake for an additional 25–35 minutes. The pie is done when the crust is golden brown and the filling is thick and bubbling.
7. Let the pie cool until the pan is warm, not hot, to the touch. Serve it with vanilla ice cream.
8. The pie keeps for a few days in the fridge. It’s best when warm, so slice it and reheat in the oven at 375°F for 8 minutes.
Notes and tips
You can use black, red, or any variety of plum you like in this pie.
If you don’t have fresh rosemary, omit it entirely. I tried dried rosemary in a test batch and it had an unpleasant, woody texture to it. The pie will still taste delicious without it.
The skins on the plums aren’t unpleasant to eat, and they give the pie a lovely garnet color, so you don’t need to peel them.
I overbaked my crust a little in these photos. Yours should be a paler golden brown than the deep brown color you see here.
The story
When I develop recipes, I want them to be as delicious as possible. Scratch that. I want them to be the best version of that dessert you’ve ever tasted. Like the Sticky Toffee Puddings, or the Apricot Pecan Scones. But I also try not to require an inordinate amount of work. (I’m not always the best judge of what’s reasonable—the Hazelnut and Vanilla Cream Puffs recipe with five different components is a case in point). My original plan with this recipe was to do my pat-in-a-pan version. It takes five minutes. It only gets a measuring cup and fork dirty. It’s delicious and crisp and there’s no way to mess it up. But then I made flaky pie crust. It’s more work, but it isn’t an unreasonable ask, and it’s better than my recipe. Which is a problem.
My mom never bothered with flaky pie crust, so I didn’t realize how good it was until last November. Our church hosted a potluck for the women where we were all asked to make a sweet or savory pie. They were all fantastic, but the one I remember most is the cherry pie Jane Keddie made. I didn’t think I liked cherry pie until I tried hers, and I’d certainly never had crust that flaky before. When I took my last bite I thought, Oh no. I’m going to have to learn how to make pie crust the hard way now.
When I was recipe testing, I asked Jane if she would teach me how it’s done. It wasn’t as difficult as I expected. Her recipe uses mostly shortening, which means the dough is easy to roll out and resilient, as well. When making pastry with butter, you need to keep it cold so the butter doesn’t melt into the dough. The intact butter flakes create layers when the pastry hits the hot oven. And shortening can get much warmer than butter can without melting.
That pie, with Jane’s homemade crust, was the best one I’ve eaten in my life. The plums were tart and sweet, and they tasted just as good as they looked. The filling was juicy, not soupy, and held together when you sliced it. The rosemary added a depth of flavor and a spicy aroma to each bite. With a scoop of vanilla ice cream to add a little richness to all that bold fruit, the flavor balance was perfect. And the crust was so flaky, so tender, so perfect. But I didn’t have the time—or the experience—to develop a flaky crust recipe of my own. Pat-in-a-pan crust it was.
If you have the time and skill, seek out a flaky pie crust recipe and put my plum filling in the middle—you’ll have the best pie of your life, too. But if you’re like me and you want a good, crisp and crumbly crust without the headache of cutting in the fat and rolling out the dough and worrying if your crust is going to break and sealing it up tight so it doesn’t leak, or if you’re just starting out on your baking journey, or you want something easy that will beat a store-bought crust, or if all you have is five minutes, or if pastry scares you—my pat-in-a-pan recipe will get you 80% of the way to pie perfection. And let’s face it. We’re all real people here. If the difference between pie and no pie is deciding to make a great five-minute crust instead of a perfect time-consuming one, settling for great is the way to go.
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I had never thought or heard of plum pie before, and with rosemary? But to my surprise it was super delicious. I saw plums on special in the supermarket and can’t wait to make - and eat - this pie again.