Stone fruits reach their peak in summer, and it’s plums that we think work best in sweet and savoury dishes. Their slightly astringent skin is lessened after some cooking, and their sweet, juicy flesh works beautifully in pastries and icy snow cones. Our very best plum recipes also prove that the dark fruit pairs wonderfully with pork, duck and seafood.
So, if you have a surplus of stone fruit while they’re at their peak and wondering what to do with plums, we have plenty of recipes made with plums to turn to — from dessert dishes to make and bake, such as plum cakes, a crostata tart, and crumbles, to fish crudo with plums and lamb ribs served with spicy plum sauce.
Here are our favourite recipes with plum for the short but oh-so-sweet plum season this year.
Perfect plum recipes for summer in 2025
Blood plum, burrata and watercress salad with toasted barley
Red emperor crudo with stone fruit and orange-oregano dressing
Chicken, roast plum, labne and grain salad
Plum burnt-butter cakes with plum semifreddo
Chocolate trifle with umeshu jelly, plums and crème fraîche
Plum and blackberry cake
Plum and cherry fruit mince tart
Double plum pudding with brown sugar hard sauce
White peach and black plum fruit salad
René Redzepi & Nadine Levy Redzepi’s brandy plum cake
Fragrant plum snow cones
Lamb ribs with spicy plum sauce
Plum, pear and ginger crumble
Biscotti with blood plum conserva
Tivoli Road Bakery’s blood plum galettes
Slow-cooked pork shoulder with plums
Cherry and plum salad
Plum crostata
Plum torta with cardamom sugar
Char-grilled mackerel with plum glaze and shiso salt
Rabbit terrine with plums and Mirabelle eau-de-vie
Duck poached in fermented green plum master stock with forbidden rice, umeboshi, spring almonds, amaranth
Duck roasted in Lambrusco with blood plums and bay
Spiced plum, cherry and coffee trifle with cardamom crumb
Plum and custard fritters
Leche merengada with spiced plums
Blood plum clafoutis
Blood plum, star anise and nebbiolo relish
Plum and thyme prosecco Spritz
Ben Dearnley