Spiced Plum & Blackberry Crumble with Toasted Hazelnuts

There’s a point when this Spiced Plum & Blackberry Crumble is in the oven when you’ll probably start checking the clock. You’ll smell the cinnamon and ginger first, then the toasted hazelnuts, and eventually those dark purple fruit juices will begin bubbling up around the golden topping. At that point, waiting for dessert suddenly feels much harder than it should.

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And that’s exactly the kind of dessert this is: warm, a little rustic, and meant to be brought to the table in the baking dish with a big serving spoon. The plums soften into tender pieces, the blackberries turn wonderfully jammy, and orange zest gives the filling just enough brightness to keep all that warm spice from becoming too heavy.

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Best of all, there isn’t much here to fuss over. Your plum slices don’t need to match. A few crushed blackberries won’t ruin anything. And the crumble topping is actually better when it looks uneven and craggy. If you’re not someone who considers yourself much of a baker, this is a very nice place to start.

🍽️ Recipe at a Glance

Detail	What to expect
🥄 Difficulty	Easy and beginner-friendly
🔪 Prep time	20 minutes
🔥 Bake time	45–50 minutes
⏱️ Total time	About 1 hour 10 minutes
🍽️ Yield	6–8 servings
🥧 Texture	Soft, jammy fruit with a crisp oat crumble and toasted hazelnuts
💡 Best tip	Scatter the crumble loosely over the fruit—don’t press it down
🍂 Best for	Late-summer fruit, fall desserts, Sunday dinners and casual entertaining

🍑 Why Plums and Blackberries Work So Well Together

Plums can be a little unpredictable in the oven—and honestly, that’s part of their charm. Some pieces hold their shape while others almost melt into the blackberries. What you end up with is a filling that has both tender pieces of fruit and those gorgeous dark, jammy juices.

The blackberries bring a little tartness, while brown sugar rounds everything out. Then there’s the orange zest. You probably won’t take a bite and think, “orange,” but you’ll notice that the fruit tastes brighter. Cinnamon and ginger warm things up, and the hazelnuts give you that bit of crunch you want against all the soft fruit underneath.

If blackberry desserts are already your weakness, you might want to save my Easy Blackberry Cobbler for another day. It has that same warm-fruit-and-spoon feeling, but with a completely different topping.

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🛒 Ingredients You’ll Need

For the Fruit Filling

• 1 kg plums (about 8–10 large plums)
• 65 g (⅓ cup) light brown sugar
• 1 orange, zest only
• 235 g (about 2 cups) fresh or frozen blackberries

For the Crumble Topping

• 205 g (about 1⅔ cups) all-purpose flour
• 125 g (½ cup) vegan butter, cold and roughly diced
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 135 g (⅔ cup) Demerara sugar
• 75 g (¾ cup) rolled oats
• 80 g (¾ cup) hazelnuts

Equipment: You’ll need a 10-inch (25 cm) square baking dish, two large mixing bowls, a fine grater or microplane for the orange zest, and a small baking tray for toasting the hazelnuts.

A Quick Word About the Plums

Try to choose plums that are ripe but still have a little firmness when you gently press them. Rock-hard plums can stay surprisingly tart even after baking, while extremely soft ones may disappear completely into the filling.

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And please don’t stand there trying to make every slice identical. Keep them fairly chunky and move on. This is crumble—we’re allowed to relax.

Fresh or Frozen Blackberries?

Either works. If you’re using frozen blackberries, there’s no need to thaw them first. Toss them in straight from the freezer. They may release a little more juice as they bake, but that’s nothing to worry about.

And if you like fruit desserts with a crisp oat topping, my Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp is another one worth keeping nearby.

👩‍🍳 How to Make Spiced Plum & Blackberry Crumble

Step 1 — Get the Oven Hot

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C), or 180°C if you’re using a fan/convection oven.

Give it time to fully preheat. We want the crumble topping to start baking properly as soon as the dish goes in.

Step 2 — Prepare the Fruit

Halve the plums, remove the stones and cut each half into 3–4 thick slices. Put them into a large bowl, add the light brown sugar and finely grate the orange zest over the top.

Give everything a gentle toss, then add the blackberries and toss once more. If a few berries get squashed along the way, nothing terrible has happened—they were headed toward a bubbling baking dish anyway.

Tip the fruit into a 10-inch square baking dish and spread it out evenly.

💡 Don’t worry if it doesn’t look very juicy yet. The oven is going to take care of that.

Step 3 — Make the Crumble Topping

Add the flour and cold diced vegan butter to another large bowl. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture looks like coarse sand with a few larger buttery crumbs here and there.

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Those slightly uneven pieces are good. We’re after a crumbly topping, not perfection.

Add the cinnamon, ginger, Demerara sugar and oats and stir until everything is well combined.

💡 If your kitchen is warm: Work fairly quickly so the butter stays cool. If it starts getting very soft and greasy, pop the bowl into the refrigerator for a few minutes before continuing.

Step 4 — Cover the Fruit

Scatter the crumble mixture over the fruit, getting it roughly from corner to corner.

Here’s the one thing I don’t want you to do: don’t press it down. Leave the topping loose and a little messy. All those little peaks and rough edges are the bits that turn beautifully crisp in the oven.

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Step 5 — Bake Until Golden and Bubbling

Bake for 45–50 minutes, until the topping is golden and you can see the plum and blackberry juices bubbling around the edges.

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That bubbling is actually more useful than the clock. It tells you the fruit underneath has softened and those juices are properly hot. If the top looks ready but you aren’t seeing much bubbling yet, give it another few minutes.

Step 6 — Toast the Hazelnuts

While the crumble is baking, spread the hazelnuts on a small baking tray and toast them for about 5–10 minutes, until fragrant and the skins have darkened.

Let them cool enough to handle, then rub them between your hands or inside a clean kitchen towel to loosen most of the skins. Roughly chop them.

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If your hazelnuts are already blanched and skinless, you can skip all that. Roughly chop them and scatter them over the crumble for the final 10–15 minutes of baking.

Step 7 — The Hard Part: Wait a Few Minutes

Take the crumble from the oven and scatter the toasted hazelnuts over the top.

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Now give it about 10–15 minutes before digging in. I know. After smelling it for nearly an hour, this feels slightly unreasonable. But straight from the oven those purple juices are extremely hot and very loose. A short rest gives them time to settle while the crumble stays beautifully warm.

⚡ Before You Bake: The Things I’d Want You to Know

• Keep the plums chunky. Thin slices can disappear into the filling. We want to find pieces of plum on the spoon.
• Keep the butter cold. That helps give us a crumbly topping rather than a heavy one.
• Leave the topping loose. Don’t pack it down. Those rough little peaks become the best bits.
• Look for bubbling fruit. A golden top tells you half the story; bubbling juices tell you what’s happening underneath.
• Give it a few minutes before serving. The filling settles as it cools—and you’re much less likely to burn your tongue on molten blackberry juice.

🔧 Something Look Different? Let’s Fix It

If you notice…	What to do
The crumble topping is soft	Give it enough time to become properly golden. Cold butter and a loose, unpressed topping will also help next time.
There seems to be a lot of juice	Don’t panic. Let the crumble rest for 10–15 minutes first. Hot fruit juices settle and thicken somewhat as they cool.
The top is getting dark too quickly	Loosely cover it with foil and let the fruit underneath continue baking.
The plums are still firm	Give them another 5–10 minutes. Very firm plums sometimes simply need more time.
The fruit tastes quite tart	Plums and blackberries vary enormously in sweetness. A spoonful of vanilla ice cream or yogurt balances a tart batch beautifully.

🌿 Make It Your Own

Once you’ve made a crumble a few times, you realize how forgiving it is. This is one of those recipes where a little improvising is completely welcome.

• Try pears instead of plums: Use ripe-but-firm pears and add another ½ teaspoon of ground ginger to the topping.
• Skip the hazelnuts: Leave them out if you prefer. The oats still give the topping plenty of texture.
• Give the topping more ginger: Replace about one-third of the flour with crushed vegan ginger biscuits.
• Make it a little more grown-up: Add a small splash of orange liqueur or brandy to the fruit with the sugar and orange zest.
• Change the spice: Swap the ginger for nutmeg, or add a small pinch of cloves or allspice.
• Use dairy butter: If you don’t need the crumble to be vegan, regular cold butter works too.

And if you happen to have pears waiting on the counter instead, my Rustic Pear Galette is another cozy way to put them to work.

🍨 What Should I Serve with It?

If we’re eating this for dessert, I’m firmly in the warm-crumble-meets-cold-vanilla camp. Vegan vanilla ice cream is wonderful because it starts melting into all those blackberry and plum juices almost immediately.

Vanilla yogurt or a thick plant-based yogurt is another good choice, especially if you want something a little tangier. And should a spoonful of crumble somehow find its way into a breakfast bowl the next morning with yogurt on top, I’m certainly not going to argue with you.

For a fall dessert table, you could also serve it alongside my Traditional Irish Apple Cake. One is juicy and spoonable, the other tender and sliceable, so they complement each other nicely.

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🧊 Storage and Reheating

To store: Let the crumble cool completely, then cover the baking dish or transfer leftovers to an airtight container. Keep it refrigerated for up to 4–5 days.

To reheat: The oven is your friend if you want to bring some crispness back to the topping. Reheat until warmed through. The microwave is absolutely fine when speed matters, but expect a softer topping.

And yes, you can eat it cold. Once the fruit has spent the night in the refrigerator, the juices become thicker and almost jam-like. Add a spoonful of yogurt and suddenly yesterday’s dessert looks suspiciously like breakfast.

❓ Questions You Might Have

Do I need to peel the plums?

No—and I wouldn’t bother. The skins soften as the plums bake, contribute beautiful color to the filling, and save us a job we simply don’t need to do.

Can I use frozen blackberries?

Absolutely. Use them straight from frozen. Your filling may look a little juicier when it first comes from the oven, so just give it those 10–15 minutes to settle before serving.

Why is my crumble watery?

Before you decide something went wrong, give it a few minutes. Plums and blackberries release quite a bit of liquid, and the filling will always look looser when it is bubbling hot. It thickens somewhat as it cools. Very ripe plums and frozen blackberries can make it even juicier.

How can I tell when the crumble is actually done?

Don’t rely only on the timer. You want a golden topping and fruit visibly bubbling around the edges. Those two signs together are much more useful than staring at the clock.

Can I make it ahead?

Yes. Bake it earlier in the day and gently warm it before serving. If you can, keep the toasted hazelnuts separate and add them after reheating so they keep more of their crunch.

Is this crumble vegan?

Yes, when you use vegan butter. If you’re serving it with ice cream, yogurt or using biscuits in one of the variations, just check those labels as well.

🍂 One Last Spoonful

I think the nicest thing about this crumble is that it doesn’t ask you to be a perfect baker. In fact, perfection would almost spoil the fun. Let the plums be a little uneven. Let a few blackberries burst. Scatter the topping rather than trying to make it perfectly smooth.

What matters is what happens in the oven: the fruit softens, those purple juices begin bubbling around the edges, the topping turns golden and the kitchen starts smelling like cinnamon, ginger and toasted hazelnuts.

Then bring the whole dish to the table while it’s still warm, put something cold and creamy beside it, and hand someone the serving spoon.

And if they go back for another scoop before you’ve even sat down? I’d call that a successful crumble.

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