Monday 8 January 2007

Rhubarb and Plum Crumble

MacMan presented me with a bundle of rhubarb from the garden yesterday. There can be no greater dish for rhubarb than a crumble. This particular recipe was strongly inspired by..... Tana Ramsay's book. No surprises there then! I did simplify the method of cooking the fruit however, as I'm afraid I found her instructions rather faffy. And I substituted her suggested peaches for plums as I still had a bag left over from the boys at the dairy - as used for the fruit gratin a couple of days ago. I seem incapable of following a recipe to the letter!!!

Rhubard and Plum (or Peach!) Crumble
Serves 6

For fruit base:
4 peaches, washed (or 8 plums!)
100g soft butter
250g brown sugar (recipe recommends demerera, but I used soft brown as I love the treacly flavour)
6 sticks rhubarb, cut into chunks

For topping:
150g plain flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
80g butter
80g demerera sugar (I used 'coffee crystals' which is like demerera only bigger bits, to give a crunch to the topping)
4 tbsp chopped nuts
  • My simplified version of TR's is to put all the fruit together in an oven proof dish. Scatter with the brown sugar and dot butter over the fruit.
  • Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 25 minutes.
  • In the meantime, rub the flour, cinnamon in with the butter for the topping until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
  • Add chopped nuts and sugar. Mix in gently with your fingers.
  • Sprinkle the topping over the cooked fruit, and return to the oven for another 20 minutes.

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This was a lovely way to cook a crumble. I served it with some fresh cream. Baking the fruit rather than stewing it stopped it from going mushy. The crumble topping had a lovely crunch, and the cinnamon was a nice twist too.

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