Rhubarb Crumble

Rhubarb (beautiful forced English rhubarb from Evesham), ginger and cream, three ingredients which suggested several delicious possibilities for our weekend pudding. Fool, trifle, ice cream, mousse, cheesecake. I considered all of these, briefly. But there was never really any question, it was always going to be crumble. Crumble is the best thing to do with rhubarb whatever the annoying celebrity chefs tell you. Simple, straightforward and no twists whatsoever. New ideas are all very well but only if there is something wrong with the old ideas.

Rhubarb, chopped and tossed in sugar and little ground ginger.
In a baking dish.

Crumble - 8 oz plain flour with 3-4 oz butter rubbed in until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Stir in 3-4 oz soft brown sugar (or whatever sugar you have) and a bit more ground ginger if you like.
Tip over the rhubarb, bake for 30 -40 minutes at 190°c (170°fan oven).

 

Serve with the cream. Or custard.
Much less trouble to make than this and frankly nicer.

Works for any fruit but particularly fruit that grows well in England -apples, pears, plums, damsons, blackberries, raspberries, currants, quinces. Harder fruit (ie quinces) need cooking first.
That said bananas are good addition to an apple and mincemeat crumble in winter and tinned peaches are quite good in a crumble especially with raspberries. You can of course add nuts, oats and ground almonds to the crumble.

This is the last of my ingredients posts following on from this post. There might be more in the future but not four in quick succession. Photographing and writing about what you ate everyday, even for just four days is hard work and rapidly becomes a chore. Thank you though for your lovely comments, I hope my recipe ideas are helpful.