I’m a fan of East London baker Claire Ptak, the owner of Violet, a bakery in Hackney. I’ve never eaten any of her pastry; never made a pilgrimage to her shop. But I do follow her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. So, you know, it’s like we’re besties.

A few posts ago, Claire – a native Californian who honed her pastry prowess at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse – snapped a photo of a bubbling pot of damson plums destined for canning jars. The color was stunning. Another post showed a pile of pretty damsons and some caster sugar ready for boiling in Claire’s copper confiture pan. (I covet that pot.)

I was intrigued by the damson plum since it appeared to be a smaller version of Italian plum, one of my mother’s favorite farm stand scores during the season. After some Google-ing, I found the little sour plums are native to Great Britain, however some trees did find their way over to the American colonies before 1776.

I thought perhaps damsons were known here on the  New England coast as beach plums, but I was wrong. Different prunus, according to my research. But I bet if you found yourself with a bumper crop of  beach plums, they would be a fine substitute in the recipe below. Just cut back on the sugar.

Apparently, damsons didn’t take off here in the colonies — probably because of the fruit’s sour taste. So imagine my surprise when I spied 2-quart boxes of them lined up the other day at Honey Pot Hill Orchards in Stowe!

While battling for position in the store’s check-out line during an insanely busy Saturday I managed to grab a box. I didn’t have a plan for the $11.50 container of plums — only some yummy Instagram photos from Claire Ptak.

The plums sat on my counter for a week until I found a recipe worthy of the expensive fruit. There are plenty of damson jam recipes out there, but they didn’t interest me. I finally scoped out Damson, Hazelnut and Brown Sugar Pudding in the Telegraph, and thought (in my British inner voice), “I can muck around with that.”

Now, for those of you non-Anglophiles, the people across the Pond call dessert “pudding.” And yes, you can have pudding for pudding. However, this recipe isn’t a pudding in any language. It’s a cobbler – a sweet dough dropped atop fruit and then baked.

First up, 3-1/2 pounds of plums needed to be pitted. Luckily, I own a “stoner” – a kitchen gadget that I use to de-pit cherries, olives and apricots. It took me about 20 minutes and made a juicy mess.

The Telegraph recipe doesn’t call for “stoning” the fruit before cooking it, but I thought it was easier – and much safer — than picking pits out of scalding magenta-colored fruit goo in a sieve. I also didn’t want anyone to break a tooth.

The recipe also calls for 2 pounds of damsons plus 10-1/2 ounces of regular purple plums. I just used all the damsons.

Also required: 3 large dessert apples, peeled and sliced. I had 2 large Cortlands and lots of smallish Mutsus from Honey Pot Hill, so I eyeballed it. You can never have too many apples, right?

Another thing: I didn’t cook the apples separately as the recipe instructed. I put them right in the pot with the bubbling damsons.

However, I gladly followed the instructions for the “sponge” — actually a vanilla-scented, cake-like topping with hazelnuts that proved to be delicious.

Slices of advice:

• You might have much more fruit juice than you need for the cobbler. I transferred the fruit from the saucepan to my porcelain baker with a slotted spoon. The juice left behind (about a cup) was strained into a glass measure and stored in the fridge. I plan to add it to sparkling water or seltzer. Nothing goes to waste.

• Absolutely, positively use self-rising flour. I use King Arthur Flour’s brand.

• Use a good size pan. I used an 8-inch white porcelain baker. It was too small, but a 9×13 pan would have been too big.

• The top of the cobbler burns easily, so cover it half-way through with foil. Make sure the middle is cooked before taking it out of the oven. If it has cooked for 50 minutes and it’s still wobbly in the middle, cook it longer. The foil on top keeps it from baking properly.

• Serve it with ice cream. I served my Damson Plum and Apple Cobbler with a scoop of Toscanini’s French Vanilla and it was jolly good!

DAMSON PLUM AND APPLE COBBLER

For the fruit
3-1/2 lb. damson plums, pitted
10-1/2 oz. light brown sugar
3 or 4 pie apples, peeled, cored and sliced (Golden Delicious, Cortlands)

For the cake
7 oz.  butter, softened
7 oz.  light brown sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp. vanilla extract
7 oz. self-raising flour, sifted
5-½ oz. hazelnuts, roughly chopped, but not too fine
chopped toasted hazelnuts and 10-X sugar, to serve or top with a scoop of the best vanilla ice cream you can find

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
Put the damsons in a pan with about 4 T. water. Heat until they start to exude their own juices then gently cook until the fruit is soft, stirring from time to time. Add half the brown sugar.

Bring the mixture up to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer until the plums are tender. Add the apples and the rest of the brown sugar.

The mixture will thicken as it reduces. Taste to see whether you need any more brown sugar since damsons are more sour than sweet. Cook the apples until they are just tender. Leave all the fruit to cool completely. In the meantime, make the “sponge” or cake layer.

Beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla. With a large rubber spatula, fold in the flour. Stir in the chopped hazelnuts.

Put the plum and damson mix into a 9-inch square dish or pan. Spoon the mixture over the fruit, gently spreading it out. Bake for 50 minutes.

The top will start to get dark about halfway through, so cover with some foil. However, the cake part may take longer to bake with the foil on top. Insert a skewer deep into in the middle of the cobbler at the 50-minute mark. The sponge part is set when the skewer comes out clean of batter. You may need more time.

Leave to cool for about 15 minutes – the fruit is very hot – then scatter with the extra hazelnuts and sift on a dusting of 10-x sugar or top with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Serves 8 to 10.

This recipe was adapted from “Damson, Hazelnut and Brown Sugar Pudding,” The Telegraph, Sept. 20, 2011.

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