Rhubarb is the one vegetable that tells me spring is truly here. I have a crown growing in the back garden and every year, without fail, it sprouts out its long stems and I get a crop of fresh rhubarb.
I make the crumble in a small pie dish, 20cms, so it all gets eaten in one go. I don’t like having lots of left over pudding sitting on the kitchen counter – it just means that I’m the one that can’t resist finishing it off and that’s another few pounds on my backside.
A little bit of ginger does something seriously good to the taste. I like to add some green apple to make the texture chunkier (rhubarb cooks down to mush) and its sweetness balances out the rhubarb’s tartness.
You will need lots of delicious custard to eat with this crumble.
Miraculous ingredient: fresh rhubarb, Granny smith apples, porridge oats, crystallised stem ginger
Rhubarb and apple crumble
Ingredients
400g rhubarb cut into 3cm chunks
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into 2cm chunks
150g demerara sugar
150g plain flour
50g porridge oats
100g unsalted butter, very cold and cubed
1 tablespoon crystallised stem ginger, finely chopped
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C.
Microwave the rhubarb to get rid of some water without cooking it too much; place the rhubarb chunks in a bowl, sprinkle with a tablespoon of sugar (this will help draw out the moisture), cover with a sheet of kitchen paper and microwave on a high heat for 2 minutes. Drain off the excess liquid.
Place the rhubarb, apple chunks and finely chopped crystallised stem ginger in a 20cm baking dish, sprinkle with a tablespoon of sugar and mix.
To make the crumble, tip the flour, oats and cubed cold butter in a bowl and very gently rub the mix between your finger tips to create big lumps of crumble. Do not over work the crumble. Be lazy and slap dash so you end up with nice big pieces of butter stuck with flour and oats – it will make the crumble more buttery and crunchy once it’s baked.
Add the remaining sugar to the crumble and gently stir through. Spoon the crumble onto the rhubarb, apple and ginger and place in the oven for 40 minutes.
Serve with a lot of creamy custard.
Preparation time 10 minutes, cooking 40 minutes, serves 4