Spiced plum and apple crumble: dairy free, vegan

I love crumble, it's one of my favourite puddings - up there with my 10 minute syrup sponge pud. This recipe is gently spiced with the Pumpkin pie spice mix from  I made last week - partly as I wanted another excuse to use it.

This is a dairy free, vegan recipe - replacing the butter with a dairy free spread, and my usual honey with a date syrup. I discovered date syrup courtesy of another blogger and really, really love the depth of flavour and natural sweetness it gives dishes. I found mine in our local health food shop, but I'm sure you could find it in a bigger supermarket.

As we don't have puddings often, I wouldn't mind Harry having a little of this. I know there's sugar in it, but a little is fine and he doesn't really have anything else with sugar in it. I tend to work on the basis that if they're not having sugar all the time, once in a while won't hurt.

Historically I've used the Nigella recipe for crumble, but today I mixed it up a bit. This would be lovely served with some Birds custard made up with almond milk. Did you know that Birds custard was invented because the inventor Alfred Bird's wife had an egg allergy so it's perfect for my CMPA bubba with an egg allergy.

Spiced plum and apple crumble
Dairy free, vegan

One punnet of ripen at home plums - about 7, quartered
3 eating apples, peeled, cored and cut into eighths
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice - this could be replaced by 1 tsp cinnamon
1 tablespoon date syrup, mixed up with 2 tablespoons of water
80g plain flour
20g porridge oats
1 tablespoon demerera sugar
70g dairy free spread - I used Pure but Vitalite or an own brand would work too

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C
Quarter the plums and put into the dish you're going to bake the crumble in - you want everything to fit quite closely
Peel the apples, cut into eighths and nestle them amongst the plums
Sprinkle over the spice
Mix the water and date syrup together and pour over the fruit
Mix everything up well and make sure the plums are skin side down
Pop into the oven for 20-30 minutes. Keep an eye, you want everything soft, not caramelised.
While the fruit is baking, make your crumble
Mix the oats, flour and sugar together in a bowl
Rub in the dairy free spread until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs
Top the baked fruit with the crumble and pop back in the oven for 20 minutes

Enjoy with that custard. Because there's nothing better.

Pretty in pink: Rhubarb rhubarb

I love rhubarb. Stewed rhubarb on yoghurt is one of my favourite breakfasts (when temperatures aren't arctic) I wish daily that I'd made more of the rhubarb and ginger jam as I ended up giving it all away. However, that's pretty much all I do with rhubarb, which isn't very exciting.

Early rhubarb is beautiful, it's rosy blush cheers me up every time I see it and makes me hopeful for spring, for sunshine and longer, warmer days. Of course this year that's gone to pot - I'm still in thermals, with 3 extra blankets on the bed, holding hot drinks to try and warm my freezing fingers.

Flavour wise I adore pairing rhubarb with ginger - be it crystallised or stem ginger the pairing just seems to work. However, this time I tried something new. I poached the rhubarb in a splash of Shloer - the new Rhubarb and raspberry flavour. This, splashed over the chopped stems as they gently cooked through on the hob made for a sweet and fresh base to the crumble. 

Rhubarb crumble

1 pack rhubarb - about 400g
200ml Rhubarb and raspberry Shloer
120g plain flour
90g butter
90g caster sugar
1 tsp ground ginger
Demerera sugar to sprinkle

Cream, custard or ice cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C
Rub the butter, sugar, ginger and flour together until you have a mixture that resembles breadcrumbs
Lay the cooked rhubarb on the bottom of a pie dish
Sprinkle the crumble mix on top and bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes (or so)
Serve with cream, custard or ice cream

Rhubarb, rhubarb: Crumble, crumble

I believed my drama teacher (snaps to Mr Davis) for years when he taught us to mouth "rhubarb rhubarb" to make it look as though we were talking when not the focus of a scene in the school play. And this was someone who took our school plays extremely seriously; I was in Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle" at 13! Never were we subjected to *shudders* "Children's theatre" and his tolerance for my love of musicals was less convincing (although he came to see me in every single one I did) than my turn as about 7 characters in a 6 hander adaptation of "Under Milk Wood." Seven layers of under-dressing, and the payoff? I got to meet Max Bygraves! Oh yes... I had made it! Still, Mr Davis clearly gave me a good grounding in appropriate onstage behaviour, how to 'become' your character, and of course, projection which I make use of daily in my work as a Learning & Development officer. Yup. Score there on the career front Penelope!

But back to the question in hand. Rhubarb. I finally moved house a fortnight ago and am loving the new flat. I'm back in North London (my spiritual home) back Guiding on a regular basis, and am even nearly unpacked. My new flatmate, showed me around the garden (yes, we have a garden! Squee!) and pointed out a rhubarb plant that 'needed' using up before it spoiled. Well in my role as new flatmate, I clearly felt it my duty, to be thrifty, and to demonstrate my skills in the kitchen. So, out of boxes came the Nigella cookware - and I'm sorry but if you don't swoon at the duck egg blue china then you must be either unwell or insane. And that's not an opinion. It's fact. Well, in my world anyway - so it was time for crumble.

As with cookware, I fall the same way with baking recipes, so went back to basics with Nigella and How to Eat. Nigella loves rhubarb (and although I have yet to go as far as her rhubarb vodka) and her recipes, whilst simple really do work with both the flavour and the texture of the fruit. In Domestic Goddess and Feast, she alters her crumble recipe, but I wanted plain and simple so that I could vary it slightly with flavours that I know marry well.

I don't know about you, but crumble was the first thing I learnt to make in Home Economics (same school as the heavenly, influential Mr Davis; teacher from the other end of the spectrum entirely). I remember vividly the excitement of taking in our ingredients (tinned apple? No, I have no idea why either, flour, margarine, sugar) and bringing home our crumbles. Mum was duly impressed, and I was thrilled. I was already able to make flapjacks, and New Zealand biscuits, as well as help Mum with regular dinners, but in my eyes, this was 'proper' cooking. Not just watching and copying, but being TAUGHT technique. It was overrated. Rubbing in is just that, although I find it oddly soothing these days.

Like so much when baking; rubbing in takes me out of that world of office politics, of activity planning, of my disastrous love life and important decisions about whether or not to bid on an Orla Kiely handbag on Ebay (decision yes, some git outbid me at the last second. I'm still bitter). This week has been a struggle for me healthwise, but I managed to sit at the table and rub the butter into the flour. Somewhere along the line in the moves I have lost my vanilla sugar so soft brown sugar was added to this, along with about half a cup of oats. I don't always add oats to crumble, but it adds a lovely texture to the topping. I spread this over the chopped up rhubarb that I had tossed in some sugar and fresh grated ginger. I know I should probably use the stem ginger in syrup but the thought of it makes me feel nauseous. I have no reason for this apart from the gloopiness (it's a word).

Speaking of the rhubarb, I actually picked it! This was exciting. The recipe had called for 750g of trimmed rhubarb and I have to confess that I had no idea how much I would need to pick. No idea at all; some days that Felicity Kendall fantasy just steps further away I just know that she would have known instinctively. *Sigh* Still, it only took three trips to the bottom of the garden to get about the right amount. I chopped the leaves off - I'm still convinced that they're poisonous despite people telling me the opposite. Anyway once I had gathered enough, I chopped the stems up into about 5cm pieces (I say about, because truthfully I have no idea without holding a ruler in my hand how long 5cm is. And I may be retentive, but even I don't chop rhubarb whilst holding a ruler!)

So this is a very long winded way of telling you that the crumble was bloody gorgeous. Of course, only I could make crumble on the hottest week of the year without the foresight to buy icecream to go with, but natural yoghurt made a refreshingly tart addition to the tasty fruit and crumble combo. My proudest moment, at a Guiding meeting the next day, receiving a text from the new flatmate "That crumble is bloody gorgeous" Ladies and Gentlemen, the pantry has reopened, and I am back!