Pear and Apple Crumble

A crumble (apple, pear and apple, rhubarb, etc.) is one of the simplest dishes to make (my mother told me how to do it in two sentences, on request).

Apple crumble was one of my favourite desserts at school, but somehow I never learned how to make it, and it is generally not something which is available pre-packaged from a supermarket.

Actually that isn't correct - Sainsbury's sell apple crumble pre-packaged. I've just not noticed it before, since I don't spend a lot of time looking in their fridges and freezers.

There are only two components - the stewed fruit, and the crumble topping. I used four medium sized pears from my mother's pear tree, and two apples bought from a local market. I peeled them, and cored them. Then I cut them in half lengthwise, and cut the halves into thin sections crosswise. After that they were put into a pan of boiling water, along with a dessert spoonful of table sugar, and a shake of cinnamon powder. The heat was turned down low, and the fruit was allowed to stew for at least an hour and a half. After which the pieces were roughly mashed with a wooden spoon.

The crumble topping has just three ingredients: four dessert spoonfuls of cornmeal flour, three dessert spoonfuls of table sugar, and about 100g of slightly salted butter. Cut the butter into thinnish slices, and add to the cornmeal and sugar in a glass bowl. Mix together with your fingers, until you have a mixture with no chunks of butter left (this is very therapeutic activity. It should take around seven minutes or so). Then the topping is ready to add to a pie dish containing the stewed fruit.

Before adding the fruit to the pie dish, reheat the fruit to the point where there is no moisture remaining around the fruit pieces. But do not dry out the fruit! Add the fruit, and roll the crumble topping mixture flat with a rolling pin. Then lay it on top of the stewed fruit, and seal the edges around the dish.

Cook in a preheated oven at around 180 -190 deg C, on the middle shelf, for between 40 and 50 minutes (this is a dish which needs to be judged by eye). As delicious and satisfying today as it was when I was a child! Serve hot or cold.

In this case, the crumble was served with two dessert spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt.