A bit of crumble for dessert?

A BIT OF CRUMBLE

I do like a bit of crumble and custard, and  Hubby definitely does; he positively glows when handed a bowl of it.  But it has to be a bit better than plain old crumble.  Spoilt, he is, his favourite has to be rhubarb and ginger crumble with homemade custard.  I never make less than a pint of custard and he swears he will love me forever when I do.  I can’t tell him it is this easy, a failsafe recipe, custard you can boil without curdling! No way….. its true.  Lets start with the crumble topping……….

Equal quantities of

Wholemeal flour

Plain flour

Sugar (granulated or brown)

Butter

I find 3oz or 100g of each is enough for our needs, but at work, we make this up in kilo/2lb batches, as it stores well and we can make fresh crumbles every day.  Neat, huh? 

 

Just rub the butter into the flours and add the sugar, and mix to make a ‘ahem’, crumble, or put everything into the food processor and whizz for a minute or so until it looks like, well….., crumble!  Different sugars will make the crumble different, granulated make it biscuity, brown makes it more caramel and dark brown will make it fudgy.  Don’t go mad the first time and try to make a kilo batch in a small food processor and then come crying to me – not listening.  It helps if your butter is not straight out of the fridge too. 

Technical bit here, I use both wholemeal and plain flour as it makes a better, looser crumble and it is slightly healthier, only slightly.  All plain flour makes a more biscuity crumble, and that can be nice too, but all wholemeal is a little much.

FRUIT BIT

Underneath the topping my favourite fruit combinations are

Rhubarb and pieces of crystalized ginger

Rhubarb and Raspberry

Rhubarb and Strawberry

Apple and Date

Apple and dried figs

Banana, dried apricot and orange juice (emergency crumble when you have to produce a quick dessert!)

You need to sprinkle some sugar over the fruit first before adding the topping. 

It is also nice to add nuts to the topping, flaked almonds are good with rhubarb and walnuts are lovely with apple.  Yeah!  This is almost health food! 

Ready for the oven   And thirty minutes or so later.....ta dah!