Apple 'Brumble'

As part of our gluten free training for caterers, we intend to provide some simple recipes that even the busiest of kitchens can produce, using ingredients that are to hand in most kitchens.

Please watch the video below and follow the recipe. 

Crumbles are extremely cost effective in two ways.  Firstly, this particular recipe allows you to make use of any stale bread in your larder (thus reducing waste); and secondly, seasonal fruits are cheap, in plentiful supply and should be at their best.  As with the Yorkshire Puddings (see an earlier Blog) the following recipe is very easy to make and all the ingredients can be easily sourced.

A crumble is best served hot.  Why not finish it with a generous helping of custard; a healthy dollop of cream; or a scoop or two of ice cream - there are dairy free alternatives available from most supermarkets.

The topping is quite sweet, so it doesn’t harm to use slightly tart / sharp fruits to give an excellent contrast to the dish.

The picture above shows an oval-shaped oven-proof dish measuring 11” x 7” and is enough to feed approximately four to six people.

GLUTEN FREE, WHEAT FREE & DAIRY FREE

Eight eating apples (or four cooking and four eating) or any seasonal fruit

125g golden granulated sugar

125g dairy free spread

125g golden syrup

250g fresh gluten & wheat free breadcrumbs

50g of nuts of your own choosing (35g ground and 15g larger chunks for added texture)

BE SURE TO CHECK – Nuts are inherently gluten free.  Processing can result in cross contamination, so check any labelling carefully to ensure there is no gluten present.

Butter can be substituted for the dairy free spread where appropriate.

                                                                                                                                           

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Serves / makes: 4-6 portions

1.  Peel and core the apples.  Dice half the quantity of apples (or all of the cooking apples) and gently heat them in a saucepan with a little water.  Cook them until they are soft.  Dice the remaining eating apples into larger chunks and set aside in a bowl of water.

2.  Place the sugar, dairy free spread and golden syrup into a separate saucepan and once again heat slowly until all the contents have dissolved/melted.

3.  Once melted, stir into your breadcrumbs and nuts mixing thoroughly.

4.  Grease your oven-proof dish.  Drain your diced (non-cooked apples) and put them into the dish followed by the cooked apples.  Then pour the topping over and smooth down until you have an even covering.

5.  Place the dish in the middle of the oven for approximately 30 – 40 minutes.  Cook until golden brown.  Serve hot.

Saw it ...... nailed it!

Last week was my little girl's birthday.  As is the want of an eleven year old, she wanted a special cake, however she actually doesn't like cake (who doesn't like cake?  Must be from her father's side!), but she wants a party tea with a few friends and a pinata. Now call me a grumpy old woman, but over the last twelve years of having kids I have been to many a party with a pinata.  Sugar fueled hooligans bash the life out of a pink and purple donkey stuffed with more sugar.  Inevitably someone has been hit accidentally with the stick and moreover the thing never breaks, so dads step in and bash the life out of this poor thing causing all the sweets to scatter everywhere and children then push and shove each other out of the way to grab what they can. Utter carnage!

So in the interest of public safety, I decide against the pinata, but remembered the front cover of an Asda magazine recently.......hey presto all problems solved.

The inspirational picture on the front of the magazine can be seen here: http://issuu.com/asdamagazine/docs/asda_july_2014compressed.  The cake consists of coloured layers of sponge with a hole cut out of the centre and filled with sweets.  What a cool idea. 

So I toddled off to the shops to get some food colouring.  Got home after popping to Morrison's, as I had to pick up other stuff from there, only to read the back of the colouring to find that theirs "may contain gluten, wheat, shellfish, dairy etc".  Why?

Anyway, so I went to Asda (completely in the other direction) and picked up their natural food colouring.  I decided on orange, red and blue.  There wasn't any yellow, but I figured normal sponge would do.

The big day comes when I decide to make this cake.  I made up a double normal sponge mix and quartered it.  I then added orange to one quarter - not a bad orange colour (although I used more colouring than the recipe recommended).  I then mixed up the blue.  We now have a grey insipid looking sponge.  In the vain hope that it will cook up with more vibrance, I put it in the oven anyway.  The red looked more purple than red and I once again decided the colour may take more when cooked.  The big risk was that if I added even more colouring it would not only change the consistency of the cake, but also taste foul.

So, after cooking and cooling, we now have one plain layer, one orange, one grey and one grey/purple.  Not quite the look I was going for.  I cut the middle out of two of the layers, smothered butter cream over the layers so that they would stick together and filled with lots of sweets.  I topped it with the plain layer and then iced it with butter cream (I never professed to be a cake decorator!) and stuck loads of sprinkles, wafer flowers and gummy bears on the outside.

Although it wasn't quite the look I was aiming for, she was still absolutely bowled over by it and her mates thought it was the coolest thing ever...............not sure the parents thanked me for the sugar rush though!