What’s a buckle? In case you’ve never heard of one before, a buckle is in the family of those other charmingly named, New-Englandy down-home desserts like cobbler, grunt, and slump that use lots of fresh, ripe fruit. It’s a cake of sorts that happens to hold an equal or greater amount of fruit than batter, and is topped with a crisp, buttery, crumble or streusel-like topping. Not only is it adaptable to whatever summery fruit needs to be used up (think blueberries, blackberries, cherries, peaches), it’s a snap to make. I probably run the risk of sounding like a broken record about stuff that is easy to make, but honestly, it’s a luxury to be able to spend the whole day baking. I guess I’m too old now to have someone like Daddy Warbucks come in and subsidize my hobby. Unless you know of someone?
This turned out to be incredibly good, and a great way to use a bag of plums I had that were starting to look a bit anxious. The recipe was inspired by this one from Martha, but I made a few changes along the way: reducing the sugar in the batter, adding more spice and a touch of lemon zest, and doing the streusel a bit differently.
If you’re like me, you might be tempted to cut corners and make this a little simpler and less caloric by leaving the streusel topping out. I’m here to tell you, don’t do it. For this type of dessert, I think the streusel is pretty integral; the cake is relatively low in butter anyway, and it adds a welcome and flavorful crunch that is rather necessary among all that soft fruit and cake. You could probably lose a tablespoon or two of butter in the topping mixture, but don’t eliminate it completely. That concludes my little public service announcement…now, on to the recipe!