Banana bread crusted plum tart

I was walking in the grocery store recently and stumbled on some “French prunes,” which were 1) actually plums rather than prunes, and 2) reminiscent of the little plums used in the German Pflaumenkuchen (plum cake). These are reasonably difficult to find in the U.S., so I bought a pound or two and stared at them for a few days.

I have two images of Pflaumenkuchen that I tend to think about. [Let’s clear this one up quickly: Yes, I think about cake.]

The first: When I was younger (and not gf), there was a time in my life when I could wander into a German bakery, pick up a big 4”x5” hunk of the doughy pastry, and scarf it down before you could say all four syllables. If only for the Pflaumenkuchen, I honestly wish that I was still in that time of my life.

The second: About ten years ago, my Oma died, and my dear Opa began cooking and baking for himself. When I speak with him on the phone, he likes to tell me what he’s baked. One time, he described a huge baking sheet of Pflaumenkuchen. How he’d bake it on Sunday. How he’d eat it the rest of the week. How he’d do the same the next week with some other fresh fruit. You have to understand that this represented—at least I imagine—a huge departure from the norm for my Opa, who had had Kaffee und Kuchen with his wife every day for Xty+ years. And I thought that was really beautiful.

Also, to be clear, it involved a favorite cake of mine.

In homage to Pflaumenkuchen, in an effort to experiment with a new kind of crust, and in the interest of using some of the most excellent, but most crumbled banana bread, I decided to adapt a plum tart recipe. Because the original recipe called for a lemon shortbread, the product was decidedly sweet rather than tart, and a bit softer than a shortbread.

Crust Ingredients

Previously baked banana bread, dried out and crumbed

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" cubes, frozen

Tart Ingredients

1/3 cup + 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

24 small plums ("French prunes"), each pitted and sliced into 4 slender wedges

2 tablespoons tart fruit preserves

Crust - Take One

1. Dry out and crumb banana bread until cookie-crumb-like in texture. This make take a few days on its own, or can be expedited by re-baking the crumbed bread on low heat (200 F) until dry.

Filling - Take One

2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the 1/3 cup of sugar, the cornstarch, kosher salt, and lemon zest together. 

3. Add the plums to the bowl and stir with cleans hands to evenly coat. 

4. Cover the plum bowl and put it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Crust - Take Two

5. Preheat oven to 375 F.

6. Butter/grease the bottom and sides of a springform or tart pan (around 9.5" in diameter).

7. Add dried banana bread to food processor and pulse until crumbly. Add the frozen butter cubes to the mixture and pulse until combined and crumbly.

Filling - Take Two

8. Using a colander over a small bowl, drain the plums. 

9. Pour the juice into a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for a few (3-4) minutes until the cornstarch is activated and the juice becomes very thick.

10. Scrape back into the small bowl and let cool.

11. Add the preserves to the saucepan. (I used our homemade strawberry, but anything will do.) Heat the preserves until liquid and syrupy.

12. Brush liquid preserves over the bottom and sides of the tart. 

13. Brush plum juice over the preserves on the bottom of the shell.

14. Starting at the edge and working towards the center, arrange the plum slices in tightly overlapping in concentric circles. (I ended up just piling some up at the center.)

15. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of sugar over the plums.

16. Bake the tart until the plums are tender when poked with a knife and caramelized along their edges, and any juices look syrupy and bubbly, 40 to 50 minutes. 

17. After you remove the tart from the oven, use a pastry brush to brush the unset juices onto any dry plums.

18. Cool the tart for at least 2 hours before unmolding. Slice with a sharp knife.

Adapted from FineCooking.