Award Winning Plum Pie

Preheat oven to 375ºF.

Get a couple of bowls ready.

In one bowl, add sliced plums. I cut my plums somewhat randomly. You do what you feel, but think of those eating your pie. Do you want massive chunks of plums, or random bite-sized slices? You decide. The skins remain on, just cut around the pit. Add lemon juice and give that a good stir.

In the other bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, salt, cornstarch, and nutmeg go in. Whisk to incorporate. Pour over the fruit, stir, and let marinate. Just make sure there are no clumps of dry ingredients hanging on the fruit.

In the now-empty bowl, add dry ingredients for the crumble topping and whisk. Take butter and cut into the dry mix until you have some nice crumbs.

Pour fruit into pie shell. (I placed mine on a baking sheet in case it cooks over. Less mess is good.) Pour the crumble mixture all over the top of the pie, and arrange as desired.

Place into the oven and cook for 50 minutes. If your oven runs hot, just check on it around 40 minutes. It should look like a delicious pie. You know what to do. You got this.

Once cooked, remove from oven and let cool for at least 1 hour. The great thing about this pie is you can enjoy it warm, or cold. What’s not to love about that.

After it cools, slice and serve with vanilla ice cream because, hey, why not?

Dig into the slice and you get that crumble. Good Lord, that crumble. Give me a pie shell full of crumble alone and I’m happy. But the crumb paired with that thickened, delicious tart plum with the sweetness of the sugar. Boom. That’s what you feel. That was it for me. I saw that happen with my wife’s first bite (and last), as well as my daughter’s bite. I knew this may win a contest.