French pear crumble

I love crumbles of any kind, but this one has become my new love. Pears are one of my favourite fruit, so this recipe was a must try. It came from my French friend, as 'les crumbles' are very fashionable in France too. She likes trying out new flavour combinations and the ones she uses here are very different.
When cooked, pears always seem to go mushy, but cooked in this way, they seem to hold their texture.
It's also a new way of making a crumble - sprinkling it onto pear halves, instead of onto sliced or quartered pears.

You need:
for the crumble:
100g flour
80g soft brown sugar
1/2 tspn ginger
80g butter + about 20g to grease the dish
1 tspn soluble coffee

for the rest:
4 pears
50g sultanas or raisins
30g butter

Preheat oven 180C/gas 4

Put the sultanas or raisins in a bowl of warm water and leave them to soak for about 2 hours.

To make the crumble - put the flour in a bowl, add the ginger, sugar, coffee and the butter cut into pieces. Rub the butter in till you have breadcrumbs - not too fine.
Wash the pears, cut each in half and take out the core.Melt the 30g of butter and coat the pears with it.
Butter a gratin dish and put the pears, skin sides down into the dish and cook for 15mins in the oven, then take them out.
Drain the fruit. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over each pear half and add some of the fruit.
Cook for 20 mins till the crumble is golden and serve the pears warm.

The crumble topping was delicious - I loved the subtle hints of coffee and ginger. This has made me want to try out other flavours in a crumble mix. The pear was soft but not squishy - a great way to cook it.
Another recipe I'll be making again.

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Blueberry Buckle

Have been trying to unravel the difference between various American words used in desserts - slump, grunt, cobbler and buckle. I've made a cobbler a few times, cutting out scone-like cobbles to put on top of the fruit but what's a grunt or a slump? Great words, and what  pictures they conjure up.
I found a recipe in an American book I bought from 'The Works' years ago, for a Blueberry Buckle. This sounded intriguing so I had to make one. What is it? It's a cake mixture with the fruit added which is put into the bottom of the cake tin, and a streusel type mixture is spooned on top. The name Buckle is supposed to have been used because the top of the baked dessert looks like it's buckled under the heat  - it does, so maybe there's some truth in this idea.

I altered some of the amounts in the recipe, as there seemed to be too much flour in the cake part. I'll certainly make the recipe again, but I'd use less sugar in the topping as it was way too sweet for our tastes.

I should also have tossed the blueberries in some flour before adding them to the cake mixture, as most of them sank to the bottom of the cake.

If you want to try a Buckle, then here's my adapted recipe - the original was in cups, so I converted it to grams, and it worked out fine.

The original recipe came from a book called 'The Big Book of American Recipes' -  it has no named author and was published in 1992

150g sugar

                                                                55g butter [in the original recipe they used shortening]

1 egg

125ml milk

                                       200g plain flour [original used 300g]

                   2 tspns baking powder

   1/2 tspn salt

                   about 250g blueberries

Preheat oven 190c/gas 5

cake mixture - cream the fat and sugar, beat in the egg; mix the baking powder and salt into the flour and add to the mixture, alternating with the milk. Add the blueberries and spoon into a 8" square cake tin, well greased.

   100g sugar

45g flour

  55g butter

                                                1tspn cinnamon [my addition as I love it!]

 topping - rub the fat into the flour and add the sugar and cinnamon. Don't rub it too fine - you need it a bit lumpy. Spoon this over the cake mixture in the tin. Bake for 25-30 mins.

You can see how most of the blueberries have sunk to the bottom of the cake layer.  I loved the contrast between the soft cake layer with the juicy berries and the crunchy topping.  It's a delicious dessert, warm or cold, and OH ate his with cream.

Oh, I forgot to say that a slump and a grunt are the same thing; different parts of the USA use different names for them. It's stewed or baked fruit with a scone-like topping rolled out over the top [or put underneath in some areas with the fruit on top!]. This is one definition of them, but I'm sure other people would disagree and have their own ideas.

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White chocolate parfait

We don't like Christmas pudding, so I try a new Christmas dessert recipe every year. Last year it was sticky toffee pudd. and this year I wanted to do something lighter. The recipe said that this amount would serve 8, but it served 3 people who had seconds! I made it in advance and froze it.

The recipe comes from this year's 'Woman's Weekly Christmas special'.

100g white chocolate broken up into pieces
250ml ready made vanilla custard
3 tbspns Baileys liqueur
142ml pot double cream
2 tbspns grated dark chocolate
a few raspberries

small loaf tin lined with cling film

Melt the chocolate and stir in the custard.
Leave to cool then stir in the Baileys.
Whip the cream then add it to the mixture.
Spoon it into the lined loaf tin and feeze overnight.
When it's solid, cover and wrap and label it.
Take it out and put it in the fridge 20 mins before you want to use it.
Put onto a plate, sprinkle the top with grated dark chocolate and decorate with a few raspberries.

Note: it melts quite quickly!

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Blackcurrant pavlova

I've made lots of small meringues and meringue toppings, but this is the first time I've made a pav.

As it was Father's Day, and Bob's favourite fruit are blackcurrants, I decided to make him a treat.

The cream didn't whip as thickly as double cream, but it turned out fine.

This is the recipe I used, but I didn't swirl the blackcurrants throught the cream. Think I used more fruit too!

http://www.blackcurrantfoundation.co.uk/recipes_pavlova.html

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Fig and almond tart

Am on a roll today!
Yesterday our lovely neighbour Maurice, aged 86, gave us a tray of figs. They were very ripe so had to do something with them quickly.
Last night I cooked some with honey and served them with mascarpone - delicious. Today I made a fig and almond tart. I bought ready made pastry so it didn't take long to make.
I found the recipe on the good food channel site.It's by David Massey.

for 6

350g shortcrust pastry
100g ground almonds
10g flour
100g caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
2 eggs
9 figs halved

preheat oven 180C/gas4/350F

Roll out pastry to fit a 23cm flan tin and bake blind for 15 mins or till base is firm.
Beat butter and sugar together till fluffy. Add the eggs. Fold in flour and ground almonds.
Spoon the mixture over the pastry and arrange the halved figs on top.
Turn oven up to 190C/gas 5 and bake tart for about 35 mins. or until almond fillings has set.
Serve with mascarpone.

When you take the tart out of the oven, you can glaze it with apricot jam which has been lightly boiled till it's become liquid.

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An easy fruit pie

One of the books I've had for a long time but never used is Delia's 'Summer Collection'. I decided I'd like to try her easy one-crust pie, so having bought some apricots, we [my granddaughter and I] made it today. I have to admit that I didn't use the semolina flour or the egg in the tart base, but it turned out fine. Maybe with fruit that are have more liquid, like rhubarb, you should use them.I didn't use the crushed sugar cubes and egg white on the top either - just brushed it with milk.

The recipe:
for the pastry:
175g plain flour
40g lard
40g butter or margarine
cold water to mix
for the filling:
750g prepared fruit [rhubarb,gooseberries or really any fruit at all][I used apricots stoned and 1/4d and added 25g flaked almonds]
75g caster sugar
2 rounded tbspns semolina flour
for the glaze:
1 egg white
6 crushed sugar cubes

Sift flour into a bowl and rub in fat. Add enough cold water to make a smooth dough. Chill in the fridge for 30 mins.
Preheat oven 200C/gas 6
Roll pastry out to a round of approx. 35 cms.Transfer to the centre of a greased baking sheet.

Paint the base of the pastry with egg yolk and sprinkle with the semolina flour.
Pile the fruit into the centre of the pastry sprinkling each layer with caster sugar, and turn up the edges of the pastry.If it breaks, patch it!
Brush the pastry with egg white and sprinkle the crushed sugar cubes over it.

Bake for about 35 mins till golden. Serve with cream or ice cream.

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Plum ice cream

Picked a lot of plums on Saturday so after making a plum torte, clafoutis and stewing some, I decided to make plum ice cream from a recipe on the Good Food site.

Forgot to take any photos as I went along, but this is the finished ice cream and it is delicious.

Plum ice cream - makes 1 litre

450g ripe plums, stoned and quartered

125g light muscovado sugar

4 egg yolks

125g icing sugar

284ml pot double cream

Put plums in a pan with the muscovado sugar and 300ml water. Bring ro the boil, cover and simmer for about 10 mins. till plums are cooked.

Pass the stewed plums through a sieve. Chill the puree in the fridge for 20 mins.

Put egg yolks and icing sugar in a bowl and stand it over a pan of simmering water. Whisk with an electric beater till the mixture has just warmed through. then take bowl off the heat and keep beating till the mixture hasd tripled in size. Chill in the fridge.

Whip the cream with 2 tbspn iced water till just holding its shape.

Churn in an ice cream maker or pour into a container and freeze for an hour till mushy. Then take out container and whisk the ice cream vigourously.

Return it to the freezer and freeze for 2-3 hours till firm.

This ice cream will keep up to 2 months in the freezer.

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Summer crumble

I am a great fan of Nigella, so when I decided to make an apricot crumble today, I looked in her 'Forever Summer' book and found this one. It's a bit different from the norm, as she adds grounds almonds and flaked almonds to the crumble.

I doubled the quantity of crumble as we love it thick!

serves 4-6

750g apricots [or any other stoned fruit] - quartered and stoned

75g butter diced

100g sr flour

25g ground almonds

75g caster sugar [I used soft brown]

50g flaked almonds

preheat oven gas6/200C/400F

Put the apricots in one layer in a shallow dish.

Rub the butter into the flour and grounds almonds till it looks like breadcrumbs, then stir in the sugar and the flaked almonds.

Sprinkle this over the fruit and bake for about 30 mins.

Serve with creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream.

From 'Forever Summer' by Nigella Lawson

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