I've been making a lot of crust-less sandwiches for the kidlet lately. It seemed really wastefully to just throw the crusts out, so I've been collecting them in a bag in the freezer instead. My original thought had been that I might be able to use them to make some sort of bread pudding. And then we got plums in our produce basket two weeks in a row. And no one's been that keen on eating them. So that naturally suggested that maybe I should try making a plum betty.

You can use pretty much any fruit in this betty. Edmonds suggests things like apples, plums, or apricots. I'm sure that things like berries or rhubarb would probably work very well too. I imagine that, if you wanted a quick fix, a tin of fruit pie filling would probably work reasonably well. Although I'd worry about a pre-made pie filling being overly sweet.

Plum Betty

Slightly adapted from Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 100g unsalted butter¹
• 2 c. soft breadcrumbs
• 1/2 c. vanilla sugar²
• 2 c. stewed plums
• 2 Tbsp. brown sugar

Directions

1. Fry the breadcrumbs in the butter until brown and crispy.
2. Remove from heat and toss with (vanilla) sugar.
3. Butter an ovenproof dish and fill with layers of stewed fruit scattered with brown sugar and breadcrumbs. Finish with breadcrumbs.
4. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 30 minutes.
5. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

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¹ Edmonds just calls for "butter" and, as far as I know, the default butter in NZ is salted, so feel free to use that if it's what you have on hand. I decided to use unsalted as I felt like that might work better with the other sweet ingredients. ^Back
2 The original recipe just calls for (granulated) sugar here. I just used vanilla sugar because I went a bit scant on the vanilla in the stewed plums, so I figured the extra vanilla notes in the breadcrumbs wouldn't go amiss. ^Back