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.

Plumfoolery - with cake

 

I've not done much baking of late - moving house has taken up most of my time and meant that I've just so little energy for anything else much at all. The weather this weekend has meant that I've been forced to come to a bit of a standstill and you know what? I've really enjoyed the slower pace. That said, I've achieved next to nothing save for some washing so normal service will need to be resumed this week. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Plumfoolery indeed. Given the fact that I have 2 trees worth of apples secreted about the house at the moment it is ridiculous to have spent yesterday afternoon baking a plum cake. But I did. So there. M's mum inspired this - she looked after me this week while I was working away and fed me with a similar cake to this that she had made for a meeting. She showed me the receip which did not lodge itself anywhere useful in my mind (unlike lipstick names and shoes) so instead I had a bash at recreating it.

I started off with a sponge cake - and added the plums with a hope that they'd cook down into some semblance of jammy-ness. I added the cinammon sugar (stolen from the topping on M's favourite blondies) to spice it up and give the finished article a whisper of autumn.

4oz unsalted butter
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour (remove 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons of custard powder
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 eggs
10 plums, halved and stoned
2 tablespoons caster sugar, mixed with
1 tsp cinammon

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees
Cream your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Add each egg and beat again with a spoonful of the flour/ custard powder mix
Add the vanilla paste and beat again
Fold in the flour/ custard powder mix
Pour and scrape into a buttered 20 inch(ish) loose bottomed cake tin
Halve the plums and place in the cake batter (I tried to do concentric circles) push down gently so that the plum is neatly lined up with the  cake mix
Sprinkle the cinammon sugar over and bake for 40 minutes

Enjoy warm as a pudding with cream or custard, or cold with a cup of tea.

Jam, jam, jam, jam, jam, jam, jam, jam: Plum jam

Or, what to do when all the stirring in the world doesn't seem to be enough. Preserving for idiots (namely me) continues...

So this return to the preserving theme (which, I admit has met somewhat of a hiatus of late, owing to a lack of glutting fruit - on that note, where are the blackberries?) Mark's Mum - she of WI and preserving fame gave me about 4lb of Victoria Plums that she had been given recently. Jam was clearly the way forward, as pots and a recipe arrived at the same time.

So, following a bad day I decided the best way to restore normality was to make preserves. I never said I was thinking rationally.

Before I get to the recipe, it's important to bear in mind the conditions the fruit has come from, this has been a very wet (is that the understatement of the century?) summer and so the fruit we were cooking down took ages to reach setting point - 50 minutes. I may have panicked once or twice during this period - called Mark's Mum 3 times and handed the whole process over to Mark declaring (with a small stamp) that, "I can't make jam anymore!"

If you've not made jam before I would read one of the first of Penelope's Preserves series either, Seville Orange Marmalade, or Strawberry jam, just to get a feel for preserving. Similarly, read this recipe through a few times, get your equipment - big pan, spoon, colander, jars, lids, saucer out and to hand. I wash my jars before I start and put them in the oven on a low heat to sterilise while I'm cooking the jam.

So, today Penelope's Pantry's Plum Preserve

3lb plums (put in a colander and rinse, then chop and stone)
3lb granulated sugar - still no need for jam sugar
Knob of butter
3/4 pint water

Put a saucer in the fridge
Put the plums into a big pan, add the water and cook until soft and pulpy. This took about half an hour.
Remove from the heat and add the sugar, stir until it's dissolved
Put back on the heat, bring to a rolling boil and cook until setting point is reached. This took me about 45 minutes of a rolling boil. Seriously, the summer has been so wet that to reach setting point was a bit of an epic task of endurance (thanks Mark)
Add your butter to disperse any scum
Remove jars from the oven, and put on something heat proof, then fill with jam
Seal with lids, or waxed circles and cellophane
When cool label up and put in your jam cupboard. Not that I have one of those. Nope.

Next up, crabapple jelly, then Bramley apple and mint jelly, then a break from preserves I promise!

Salad Days: Beetroot, green bean and feta salad

The eagle (owl) eyed amongst you will notice that there is, no photo of this meal. That is because this is quite possible the least photogenic thing I have ever made. Literally. I always thought that casseroles with their brown colours and squishy ingredients were unattractive, but that was before I made this salad. To read the ingredients you would think (as did I) that it had the potential to be stunning, that the verdant greens of the leaves and beans would contrast stunningly with the white goat's cheese and ruby beetroot, all annointed by the faint pink blush of the dressing.

However what I ended up was a tasty mush of goats cheese squished over the beans and leaves, with the beetroot that bloody red that's almost black. The Chanel Rouge Noir of vegetables. I would absolutely recommend you make and try this salad as it is gorgeously tasty, but photograph the ingredients beforehand - do some tasteful arranging on a wooden chopping board, or worktop.

This recipe is a Riverford veg one. I came to it following the second delivery this season of beetroot. I cooked the first batch and left it in the oven to cool, wrapped in foil. At which point I promptly forgot about it for the best part of the rest of the week. Yes, my name is Penelope and I have scatty, slatternish tendencies. What a waste! I was so cross with myself as I love beetroot - there's something about the earthiness of the flavour that seems such a contrast to it's sweetness - which is why I've often used it in cakes, in a similar way to the courgette brownies I made here - which, oddly was also a Riverford recipe.

On a side note, what's quite nice about going back to that post is that my photography skills are actually beginning to improve - at least slightly!

So today Penelope's Pantry brings you... the world's least attractive salad:

Summer salad with beetroot, goat’s cheese + Frenchbeans

Roast or boil the beetroot - to do that, wash and trim them (keep the leaves for the salad) then place in a dish in a preheated oven (200 degreesish) for about 45 minutes. Riverford suggest adding water to the dish and covering with foil - but in the Pantry we fly by the seat of our pants and just wallop them in and take them out when they're softened. This will take about 45-60 mins, depending on size Oh and if you don't want to go out looking like you've committed murder, then wear clean marigolds, or latex gloves. Scrubbing with salt and lemon juice works if you ignore this advice. Said as one who knows!

Ingredients

300g mixed summer salad leaves

150g French beans, trimmed

200g cooked beetroot, cut into 2cm cubes

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp good-quality red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar

Salt + pepper

100g soft goat’s cheese, crumbled

Salad leaves - I used the beetroot tops and some bagged salad that had come in my Riverford box last week.

Method

1. Wash the salad leaves and dry well. Cook the beans in boiling salted water for 3–4 mins, until just tender, then drain, refresh in cold water and drain again.

2. Put them in a large bowl with the salad leaves and beetroot.

3. Whisk the olive oil, vinegar and some seasoning together to make a dressing.

4. Toss with the salad then sprinkle with goat’s cheese.

Step 4 is where I came unstuck. My goat's cheese didn't exactly sprinkle per se. More squished. Maybe you have a more gentle touch than me. Here's hoping yours doesn't turn out mushy as it's lovely, really fantastic contrasting tastes and textuertures.

I used the beetroot while still warm, partly due to time pressures, partly because that was what I fancied. As the other ingredients were fridge cold or room temperature this again made for a nice contrast.

The Riverford recipe suggests that this serves 4 as an accompaniment to lamb - but I had it as a standalone dish, but this meant it did 2 portions instead of the 4.

Other suggestions are to swap out the beetroot when it's not in season for butternut squash and I'll definitely be trying that, although I'll have to ask a beauty blogger for some help with nail polish names to match that!

Next up - some jams and excitingly my first jellies; plum, and crabapple and mint.