Ingredients / Shopping List
150g plain flour50g rolled oats (porridge)100g baking fat (margarine)100g sugar50g sunflower seeds50g flaked almonds
150g plain flour
50g rolled oats (porridge)
100g baking fat (margarine)
100g sugar
50g sunflower seeds
50g flaked almonds
Prep to Cook:
Oven 200ºC or Gas Mark 6
Ovenproof dish
Prep: Prepare the fruit by trimming the ends of the rhubarb stalks and cutting into 2 – 3cm length pieces.
Place in greased cooking dish and sprinkle over the sugar
Pop into the oven whilst you prepare the crumble topping.
Put the flour and the oats into a mixing bowl
Rub the fat into the flour using your finger-tips.
Stir in the sugar
Stir in the sunflower seeds and the flaked nuts
Take the dish of fruit from the oven – drain excess juices.
Spoon the crumble over the fruit and level out.
Return to the oven for about 25 minutes or until the crumble is golden. Serve warm.
This is traditional crumble with added crunch!
It's always a winner.
Cooks Know How: Fruit crumble stands the test of time as a pudding. It is a simple rubbing-in method preparation. The fat proportion is half fat to flour so rubbing in by hand is easy, but of course you can pop everything into a food processor if you want. Rubbing-in using the fingertips helps you to remember that this technique of rubbing in makes sure the flour grains are all evenly coated with fat so that the crumble is crumbly! It has no water or liquid ingredient, so the fat is important in making the texture.
Once the rubbing-in is complete the other additions to the crumble are dry and can therefore be stirred in; sugar, sunflower seeds and flaked almonds and mixed.
These ingredients add nutrients and texture and together with the oats are a modern twist on the old very simple crumble topping made purely with flour, sugar and butter. During baking in a hot oven the fat melts and is absorbed by the flour, the sugars caramelise on the surface and there is some browning from the fat coated starch grains. The surface of the crumble browns evenly and becomes crunchy.
Stewed fruit is sweetened to taste – sometimes not much is needed. Mixtures of fruits can be used such as baking apples with blackcurrants, or plums depending on what is seasonal.