Rustic plum tart

What do you call plums cooked with a red wine (or port) and brown sugar syrup scattered over a simple rolled out pie dough and served with vanilla ice cream? A perfect summer dessert.

This was a breeze of a thing, thought up after seeing it in bon appetit recently. Plums have just made an appearance at the local market and I bought some hoping to do something like this with them (although I love plums eaten fresh on their own too).

I took it to a father's day dinner party and it was enjoyed by all. It's no 'knock your socks off' crazy dessert; just a simple and easy thing to whip up that tastes homemade and makes good use of a seasonal fruit. It could easily be done with peaches (also in season now) or cherries. Yum!

Rustic plum tart (adapted from bon appetit, june issue)

For the crust:

2 cups a.p. flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c + ice water
1 + 1/2 sticks of cold butter

For the filling:

about 6 ripe plums, seeded and quartered
1/2 c + 1 T brown sugar
1 T flour
a dash of maple syrup
2 c port or red wine

Make crust: put flour and salt in bowl and cut in butter with a pie cutter or a fork. Add cold water a little at a time and mix with fork until it comes together with small lumps of butter. Divide in half, make 2 discs and cover with plastic. chill for at least one hour.

Make filling: Boil wine or port, brown sugar, maple syrup until reduce to about 1/2 cup of syrup (10-15 min). Cut plums and put in bowl, sprinkle with flour and toss to coat. Drizzle syrup on them and let sit until crust has chilled.

Roll out crust on a parchment-lined baking sheet til about 10-11 in. in diameter. Put plums in the center and drizzle with remaining syrup, if any. Fold edges of dough over and brush with water. Sprikle edges and plums with brn. sugar and bake for about 40 min., until edges are golden brown.

Serve at room temp. with vanilla ice cream and lick your plate!