grandad crumble.....

Yesterday was monumental for 2 reasons. Firstly, apparently we are experiencing the earliest, heaviest snowfall for 17 years! Its crazy, I just thought it had finally stopped and then I looked out the window and its coming down again. The weather also seems to have something to do with my horrifically expanding waistline. It just makes me want to eat mashed potatoes and stew....constantly. I think I have put on approximately 90 stone, give or take a few pounds... but yes, nearly 90 stone. The second thing was that I actually got my grandad to come to my house for dinner! If you can get him to leave his own house and have something to eat you have a success on your hands of epic proportions. So with him coming over for his dinner there was some nostalgia hanging in the air I think, part grandad visit, part heavy snow! So for dessert I cooked up what is surely one of the classic childhood staples- the crumble. When I was a child though sadly it was usually apple crumble which i detest. Just based on the fact that I cant abide cooked apples! Don't like the the texture, that grainy baby pulp- blurgh! Now this crumble on the other hand, with its cheek suckingly sour berries and crunchy almond flaked topping is heaven! 

Ingredients- makes 4 deep filled individual pots or 1 large in a pie dish

• 600 grams of berries.  I used a frozen selection of raspberries, blueberries and morello cherries
• 3 tablespoons of caster sugar
• 150g of plain flour
• 1tsp of baking powder
• 110g of unsalted butter, cold and cubed
• 3 tblsp of vanilla sugar
• 3 tblsp of demerara sugar
• 50g or flaked almonds, half chopped, half whole

• preheat your oven to about 190°c 
• allow your fruits, if your using frozen ones to defrost and sieve off the juice that has come off. alot more will come off during the cooking and you want a thick sauce, not a watery mess. Stir in the 3 tablespoons of caster sugar and leave to rest and absorb 
• put the flour and the baking powder into a bowl and then rub in the cold cubed butter with your fingertips. You can't rub it with your palms or it will melt the butter and you wont achieve the sort of oatmeal texture that your looking for

• stir in your demerara and vanilla sugars then the 25g of chopped almonds with a fork so that you keep all the grains seperate and theres no clumping, then add the rest of the almonds and give it another quick forking

• divide the berries between their ramekins if thats what your using, or tumble them into a pie dish
• cover the pies with the crumble topping, making sure it goes right up to the outside edge of the dish so that the filling doesn't bubble up too much and give you a soggy topping
• put your ramekins or pie dish on a baking tray so that any juices that do bubble over don't run all over your oven and then bake for 30-40 minutes or till the topping is golden and scorched in places.
• remove, serve and enjoy! I like mine with vanilla ice cream.

xoxox