What to do when a lovely friend gives you a whole bagful of delicious fresh plums picked from her garden? Decisions, decisions!

Of course we ate lots of them just straight from the bag, and they are really good ones, sweet as can be and no little wriggly worms like the ones we had from our old tree.

I do love any variation on flapjack, so I thought I would make a something not quite the same, but similar and with plums in the middle, making them nice and squidgy. 

This is how I did it:  

Method for making Plum Crumble Squares

Ingredients:

500g fresh plums

1 teasp ground cinnamon

235g butter

120g soft brown sugar

1 tab syrup 

300g wholemeal flour

200g porridge oats

1/2 teasp salt

8 inch square baking tin

Remove the stones from the plums and cut them into slices. Mix in the cinnamon.

Melt the butter, sugar and syrup in a pan and then stir in the flour, oats and salt. Put slightly more than half the mixture in the base of the baking tin and it press down firmly. Scatter the sliced plums over the top and then the remainder of the oat mixture, pressing it down fairly firmly.

Heat the oven to 175C fan.

Bake for 20-25 mins, turning it around after about 15 mins. The top will be a nice golden brown colour. Allow to cool and cut into 16 squares. It will be a bit crumbly, and probably needs to be eaten with a fork (or spoon) but that’s part of the joy of them!

Would I make Plum Crumble Squares again?

Definitely! They’re so morish that I kept going back for another piece and ended up having to make another batch!

I would just say that they do go a bit soft after a couple of days, as the juice from the plums seeps into the base, but this isn’t too much of a problem as you will want to eat them all pretty quickly!