Plum Crostata

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date! And that date is the monthly posting for Daring Bakers. I put off this ridiculously easy recipe until the day after it was supposed to be posted. As I was making it, it was so easy I wondered why I waited so long.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

I had never had a crostata but I knew I wanted to make gingered plum preserves for it. The only problem was that in November, plums are pretty much gone from the markets, unless they've been picked green and transported from another continent. That's what I ended up with, and the preserves weren't as great as they normally are but they were still better than store bought. 

The crust is fairly simple to put together and work with, and rolling it out was a snap. I cut out some little hearts from the scraps instead of doing the lattice because it was 8 PM. My crostata baked for 29 minutes and cooled completely before we cut it. It was good, but I wasn't wowed by it. That could have been because it came after the many desserts during the long Thanksgiving weekend.

Thanks, Simona, for hosting this month and for picking something easy! If you'd like the recipe, Simona has it for you here.

And now for some shameless self promotion...have you entered my giveaway yet? BlogHer has graciously offered a $100 Visa gift card. You can enter here.