Chocolate Crumble

I love apple crumble but as my husband doesn't eat apple I almost never make it - because I feel like I'd have to make him an equivalent dessert at the same time and I can never think of anything similar! My problem  was solved when I found this Tesco recipe for chocolate crumble - it has a gooey chocolate base with a delicious crumble topping.

I feel that I should echo Tesco's comment that "This pudding is very rich and indulgent so it shouldn't be eaten too often. But it's perfect for those special occasions!"

To serve 4, you need:
for the filling:
200g plain chocolate, chopped
150ml whipping cream
1 tbsp. cornflour

for the topping:
100g caster sugar
icing sugar for dusting
100g unsalted butter
150g plain flour

Preheat the oven to 190C. Bring the cream to the boil in a saucepan then remove from the heat, and stir in the chopped chocolate until it has melted. Whisk in the cornflour until smooth.

Pour into an oven proof baking or casserole dish and leave to cool for ten minutes.

Meanwhile rub the butter and flour between your fingertips to make 'breadcrumbs' then mix in the sugar. Alternatively put the butter, sugar and flour in a food processor and pulse. Spoon the crumble on top of the chocolate filling and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes and dust with icing sugar before serving.

 

 

I'm sharing this with We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

 

Nutty Pear Crumble with Haagen-Dazs Honey, Walnut and Cream

I love crumbles - they are very wintery puddings, aren't they? Often served with cream, custard or ice cream, apple crumble is one of my favourite desserts.

When I was sent a voucher to try out a new flavour of Haagen-Dazs ice cream - Honey, Walnut and Cream - I thought a crumble would be a lovely thing to make to serve with it. I decided to try something a bit different and use pear instead of apple, and mirror one of the flavours of the ice cream by adding some nuts.

The ice cream is very creamy with a swirl of honey in the middle for an added hit of sweetness. The walnuts add a nice crunch and you get a different mixture of flavours in every spoonful. It's really good on its own, and works really well with desserts as it wouldn't overpower the flavour of the pudding you serve it with.

I remembered a Weightwatchers recipe for crumble I'd once made, that used rolled or porridge oats in the topping as well as flour and sugar as a way to use less of the latter two ingredients; I decided to add some oats and some chopped nuts into my crumble topping for a filling, warming winter crunch.

To serve 2, you need:
2 pears
1 tbsp. artificial sweetener (optional)
50g low fat spread
50g plain flour
25g caster sugar
25g chopped mixed nuts
25g rolled or porridge oats
Haagen-Dazs Honey, Walnut and Cream ice cream, to serve

 

Preheat oven to 180C (it's good to make this while you already have the oven on to make dinner - it's lovely after a roast!). Peel and slice the pears and place in a saucepan with 100ml water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer until the water has evaporated and the pe
ars have softened. Add sweetener if desired.

Spoon the pears into an ovenproof dish and set aside.

Rub the low-fat spread and flour together in a bowl to make a breadcrumb texture then stir in the sugar, nuts and oats. Scatter over the dish with the pears and bake in the oven for 30 minutes until browned and crisp.

 

Serve warm, with Haagen-Dazs Honey, Walnut and Cream.

Chicken and Bacon Crumble

I made this to go alongside the vegetarian winter crumble I served when I had my parents and my boyfriend's mum over for dinner. The vegetarian crumble was the starting point of the menu, which I found in a recipe book, so I wanted a meat alternative to go with it. I liked the idea of a savoury crumble topping to the pie, rather than mashed potato or pastry, and found this recipe online on Recipe Adaptors, which I then adapted myself as some of my guests don't like mushrooms.

Serves 4
500g diced chicken breast
2 tbsp plain flour
salt, pepper
1 tbsp oil
1 onion, finely chipped
150g bacon, chopped
1.5 cups chicken stock
200ml sour cream or Carnation Cook With It Cooking Cream
1 tsp wholegrain mustard

for the crumble topping:
1 cup plain flour
90g butter, diced
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 175C.
Toss the chicken pieces in 2 tbsp flour until evenly coated. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, and fry the chicken until cooked through. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
In the same pan, fry the onion and the bacon until cooked.

In a small saucepan, bring the chicken stock to simmering point, stir in the cream and mustard and remove from the heat.

Spoon the chicken, bacon and onion into a casserole or oven-proof dish and pour the sauce over the top.

To make the topping rub the flour and butter between your fingertips in a large bowl to make a crumble. Then stir in the parmesan. Mix well, and spoon over the top of the meat.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until the top is golden brown.

This a lovely wintery recipe and the crumble topping is a little bit different!

 

Vegetarian Winter Crumble

Recently my parents came to stay for the first time since I moved house and we invited my boyfriend's mum over for dinner for the first time as well. She's vegetarian so I turned to a book called the Creative Vegetarian I picked up recently in a charity shop, in the hope that it would have some more interesting recipes. It's not illustrated so it's hard sometimes to imagine what a particular dish might be like, but this one caught my attention - it's basically a root vegetable pie, but instead of a pastry or mashed potato topping, it has crumble - like you'd have on an apple crumble, but savoury. It turned out to be really nice; the root vegetables are perfect for this time of year. It was filling and the cider sauce had a lovely flavour.

I did make one significant change from the recipe, as it called for a tin of black eyed beans which I just didn't think went with the English root vegetables, so I left it out. I also adjusted the quantities for the sauce as it didn't seem quite right. Finally, the last stage of the recipe after you have done the root veg and made the sauce - before you spoon over the topping - is to add some sliced tomatoes and I completely forgot! But I don't think the recipe needs them at all (you may disagree), so this is what I did.

To serve 4-6, you need:
90g butter or marg
120g flour
60g rolled oats
120g vegetarian cheese, grated
280ml cider
175ml vegetable stock
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp cornflour
2 parsnips
2 carrots
1 head broccoli
1/2 head cauliflower
1 stick celery

Preheat the oven to 175C. Make the topping by rubbing the butter into the flour to make breadcrumbs then mix in the oats and the cheese. Put to one side.

Peel and slice the parsnips and carrots, place in a pan of slightly salted water and bring to the boil. Add the broccoli, cauliflower and celery and parboil until slightly softened but not fully cooked.

In another pan bring the cider and stock to simmering point and add the sugar. Mix the cornflour with a little water and stir into the pan; keep stirring the liquid as it simmers until it has thickened. Remove from the heat.

Spoon the vegetables into a large casserole dish and pour over the liquid. Spoon the crumble topping evenly over the top and place in the oven for half an hour until the topping is crisp.

I served this with potato wedges but really it's a one-pot meal in itself, which you can prepare in advance and finish off in the oven later.  It's great for a winter's day!

I'm sending this to the Vegetable Palette challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment2Kitchen, as the chosen colour this month is white vegetables and parsnips and cauliflowers are white.

She is also hosting the Eat Your Greens challenge which asks for recipes using green veg which this also includes.

2 course menu: cod en croute with crab and sticky toffee apple crumble

 

I love apple crumble and I love sticky toffee pudding, so I decided to combine the two and create my own pudding - which tastes amazing! I've never come across this before though perhaps someone has already invented it, but I am very pleased with my sticky toffee apple crumble.

I made this for the SACO Kitchen Challenge. SACO is a company that provides serviced apartments worldwide - as an alternative to staying in a hotel, where you might have more space but also the ability to cook your own meals, an option you don't have in a hotel.

The challenge is to come up with a two-course meal for two, that guests could cook in a SACO apartment kitchen with the standard equipment provided in the apartments. They sent over the inventory and I was impressed at the range of utensils, pots and pans and so on - there are too many things to list here but you get things like a mixing bowl, pie dishes, cheese grater, glass oven proof dishes, tea towels and so on.

This time of year is great to get friends and family together whether it's to go and see the fireworks on November 5, visit another country for a Halloween break or to check out the Christmas markets, or to do your own take on a Thanksgiving meal with family or friends - after all, not many people have enough room in their homes to put up that many people overnight, so you might be better off renting an apartment for a night or two!

With that in mind I wanted my two-course menu to be fairly autumnal - hearty food with warm flavours. I decided to make cod en croute stuffed with crab with potato wedges for the main course, and sticky toffee apple crumble for pudding.

Cod en Croute stuffed with  Crab - an original recipe by Caroline Makes

serves 2

2 cod fillets

170g tin of shredded crab meat

1 piece of day old bread, chopped into small cubes

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tsp capers, chopped plus two extra for decoration

dash of lemon juice

200g ready-made puff pastry

1 egg

For the potato wedges:
5-6 potatoes depending on size
olive oil
salt

Preheat the oven to 175C. First prepare the potato wedges. Wash and dry the potatoes with a clean tea towel. Slice with a sharp knife on a chopping board into wedges.

Line a large baking tray with foil or grease with a little oil. Toss the potatoes with the salt and a dash of oil and spread out across the tin. Bake in the oven for one hour, turning half way through.

For the fish:
Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured chopping board. Using a sharp knife, cut out a fish shape slightly bigger than your piece of fish; use that as a template to cut out another three.

Drain the tin of crab meat and mix in a small bowl with the bread, salt, cayenne pepper, mayonnaise, capers and lemon juice.

Place the cod pieces onto a piece of fish-shaped puff pastry and spoon half the crab mixture on top of each piece of fish, spreading out evenly.

Place the other piece of pastry on top. Place a caper where the fish's eye would be.

Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown. Serve with green veg and the potato wedges.

For the sticky toffee apple crumble
Serves 4 - ideal if there are two of you because you will want some more of this the next day!
75g unsalted butter
125g light brown sugar
2 eggs
200g self-raising flour
2 apples
50g light brown sugar
50g unsalted butter
75ml double cream

Preheat oven to 175C (or make this and the main course at the same time).

Grease a glass oven proof dish.

In a bowl cream 75g butter with 125g light brown sugar. Beat in two eggs and 200g self-raising flour.

Thinly slice two apples.

Spoon half the cake mixture into the base of the ovenproof dish and place the apple slices on top. Spoon the rest of the cake mixture on top of the apples.

To make the toffee sauce, place 50g light brown sugar, 50g unsalted butter and 75ml double cream into a small pan.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 1-2 minutes then pour over the top of the apple and cake mixture.

Place 200g plain flour, 120g butter and 120g caster sugar in a bowl and rub together with your finger tips to make a breadcrumb-like texture - this is your crumble topping. Spoon the crumble mixture over the top of the pudding.

Place the ovenproof dish on a baking tray in case of any leakage and bake in the oven for half an hour.

When you dig in you will see the base is like a sticky toffee pudding - the caramel sauce will have soaked in to the cake mixture as it cooks, giving a lovely sticky, moist base. Then you have the layer of apple in the middle and the crumble topping which will be a lovely golden brown. This is a very sweet pudding but absolutely delicious.

 This is my entry in the SACO Kitchen Challenge - thanks to SACO for providing £20 with which to purchase all the ingredients for these two courses.

I am also sending this to a blogging round-up called the Four Seasons Food challenge, hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux. Their chosen ingredient this month is fruit.

Ginger Peach Crisp

I had some peaches that were going a bit soft and decided to use them up in a dessert. I thought peach would go well with ginger - which is the ingredient for this month's Feel Good Food Challenge, and begins with G which is ideal for Alphabakes! I decided to see what ideas Google could suggest using both peaches and ginger, and found this recipe for a ginger peach crisp - which turned out to be a lot like a crumble, and very nice!

To make enough for three, or two hungry people, you need:

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp chilled butter, diced

2 tbsp sliced almonds

4 peaches, sliced

1 tbsp sweetener

2 tsp cornflour

3/4 tsp fresh ginger, grated - or a squeeze from a tube of ginger puree

Preheat the oven to 180C. First make the crumble topping, by rubbing the butter into the flour until you have a breadcrumb-like consistency. Then mix in both the granulated and the brown sugar and stir in the almonds.

Slice peaches and place in the bottom of an overproof dish. Sprinkle over the sweetener and the ginger.

Spoon the crumble topping over the top.

 Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

I love crumble - and the ginger and peach made this a nice change from the apple crumble I would normally make. It's lovely served with cream or ice cream, or if you don't have either, even just a splash of milk.

I'm sending this to Feel Good Food. hosted by Victoria of A Kick at the Pantry Door.

I'm also sending this to Alphabakes, managed this month by my co-host Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as our letter this month is G.

I'm also entering this in the No Waste Food Challenge, which encourages us to use up leftovers - the peaches were getting soft and needed using up, and the flaked almonds came from an open packet in my cupboard that has been there for quite a while! The challenge is hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary on behalf of Kate from Turquoise Lemons.