I’ve always thought that there is nothing as nice as an unexpected pudding.
After I Tatin’d myself last week (https://newrecipenight.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/periodic-pudding-number-2-tarte-tatin/) I was a bit pudding shy, but then I was looking for a new cake to try and decided on a Rhubarb and Almond Loaf from the Hummingbird Bakery ‘Cake Days’ book. The smallest (only) pack of rhubarb I could find was big enough to make four cakes, which is far too many even for me, so I decided to try making crumble, so as not to waste the rhubarb.
I’d never made a crumble before, hence my proud writing about it here. This particular crumble is a bit of a franken-crumble on account of the fruit being stewed to the Rhubarb and Almond Loaf recipe, and the crumble being roughly to Nigella’s recipe in ‘How to Eat’
Unfortunately the stewed rhubarb lost its colour whilst being baked, but it didn’t while being turned into crumble. My mum has always had a rhubarb patch, so I had never cooked or eaten pink rhubarb before.
To stew the rhubarb, cut 4-5 stalks into 2cm pieces and stew with 70g caster sugar and 30g of butter in 50ml of water – I used double these quantities to stew the whole pack; but I took out 100g for the cake.
I chose Nigella’s crumble mix above all the other recipes I had to base my crumble on, because that was the only one that mentioned being good for rhubarb.
For a medium sized dish, rub together 75g or self-raising flour, 75g of porridge oats, 90g of butter, 4 tablespoons of light muscovado sugar and 2 of vanilla sugar. I put it in the oven for 30 minutes on gas 5 (190c).
Whilst it was in the oven I had my first bash at custard. I’m not ashamed to say that I used Bird’s custard powder – it’s what I was raised on, and I don’t like to see other custards. I followed the instructions on the side of the tin, made the paste while the milk heated and mixed them together. Then I did something pretty silly. It seemed too runny – I hate runny custard – so I added more powder…
I didn’t realise that instant custard thickens when it is returned to the pan and brought to the boil. I’m very ashamed to say that the custard stopped moving before it boiled. Also, I really shouldn’t have let it cool.
I didn’t keep my other slice for the next day, it wasn’t very nice – but the crumble was lovely!
New Recipe Night 