Pear and Apple Crumble

Two cored and diced apples, and five cored and diced pears, stewed in a pan of boiling water for an hour and a half. After that the contents of the pan were gently mashed. The lid was removed, and the contents allowed to thicken (judge by eye).

Two dessert spoonfuls of demerara sugar were added to a bowl, along with three dessert spoonfuls of spelt flour. plus 70g of salted butter. All mixed together by kneading. This can take ten minutes or so.

Cooked in the middle of the oven at 180 deg c for between 40 and 50 minutes (again, judge by eye). Served in this case with a couple of spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt. Eat hot or cold.

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.

Pear and Strawberry Fruit Salad

Slice the pears vertically to  remove the central portions containing the seeds, and then chop into small chunks. Remove the leaves from the head of the strawberries and halve or quarter them (still early in the local season, so these strawberries came from Spain).

Souse in a bowl in a mixture of white wine (about 150ml) and sugar. Cover and leave in the fridge for two days, giving the occasional stir.

Serve with double or single cream. Delicious!

Pear and Apple Fruit Salad

Made with one Williams pear and one Bramley apple, some Creme de Menthe, and some single cream. 

The pear was cut into lengthwise slices, and the apple was cut into eight segments, using a useful tool designed to make this easy.  These segments were then each cut into four or five parts. Mix the fruit together. Add the cream to a serving bowl, and add the fruit. Drizzle two dessert spoonfuls of Creme de Menthe. Ready to serve! 

Pear and Apple Fruit Salad

Pear, Blueberry & Strawberry Fruit Salad

The basis of this dish is strawberries in sugar and blended Scotch whisky, a take on Strawberries Rombauer, from the 'Joy of Cooking', which recipe I posted a few days ago. So the main part of the description is essentially the same. 

The strawberries were topped to remove the green collar, then each was sliced in two, at an angle, rather than straightforward halving. This increases the surface area of the strawberries. 

After cutting, they were decanted into a glass bowl, and given a coating (two table spoons worth) of ordinary refined sugar (caster sugar does just as well). A large dash of blended Scotch whisky was added also. The mixture was stirred for a couple of minutes, to dissolve the sugar and spread it evenly through the strawberries. 

A Scottish twist is the addition of a couple of shakes of white or black ground pepper, which gives the final flavour a little edge. 

The bowl was set aside and covered with a plate, and left altogether for four hours, to allow the osmotic pressure of the sugar to extract some of the juices in the strawberries. The mixture was stirred at least once an hour. If the bowl is placed in the fridge, the process will take place more slowly. Outside the fridge, the dish will be ready to eat after four hours, at room temperature. 

I added to the bowl about 100 grams of blueberries, and a Conference pear, cored and thinly sliced. Allowed to sit for fifteen minutes after stirring in to the strawberries. 

The contents of the bowl were stirred again for two minutes before the fruit was decanted into a dish containing some Scottish single cream. 

Pear, Blueberry & Strawberry Fruit Salad

Pear, Plum & Blueberry Salad

Another quick to prepare fruit salad, made with whole blueberries, and slices of pear and plum. Mixed with two spoonfuls of Greek Style Yoghurt.

Pear, Plum & Blueberry Salad