Sunday 21 January 2018

Recipe: simple crumble topping with variations

This is so easy and so well known, I hesitated to post it but it's my blog and I'll do what I want, to coin a phrase, so here goes.  :-)

It's a three ingredient mixture with optional extras.
For each portion of plain flour, you want about half that amount of butter and less than half that amount of sugar (the sweetness is to taste really).
So if you have 100g flour, you will need 50g butter and between 30 and 50g sugar.
(Recipes vary in their amounts so it obviously doesn't really matter all that much)

Put the flour in a bowl and add the butter cut into cubes.  Rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Mix in the sugar.
And that's it!
If you want to freeze some, just pop it into a plastic box or a poly bag and when you next need some, just spoon out what's wanted.  Dead easy!

There are loads of variations.  My mum used to add chopped walnuts and oats which was lovely.  I've seen recipes with desiccated coconut added to the basic mix and sweet spices usually go well with the fruity bottom.  Or you can use different sugars - demerara gives a nice crunch, for example, as well as a deeper flavour.  One other addition that really appeals to me is to use grated lemon zest.

Frugal tip:  if you use caster sugar (you don't have to for crumble topping), pop some granulated sugar into a zizz and grind it down to the right texture.  With granulated sugar currently £1.00 for 2k in Morrisons and caster sugar at £1.60 for 1k, it's a no brainer!
(However, only zizz down what you need each time)
You can also continue zizzing it down into icing sugar, if that's what you need.


As for the fruity bottom, all I will add is that rhubarb and strawberry is a flavour marriage made in heaven and I have both in my freezer, produce from last summer's garden and allotment. 
Do I need to say more|?

12 comments:

  1. These are the same proportions I use.

    I use my Nutribullet to whizz up any caster sugar or icing sugar I need. It's so easy to weigh out the sugar in the cup and then whizz it up, and as you say much better value to buy just granulated sugar and use it in whatever form you need.

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    1. So easy and so much better for the budget! I use so little sugar that it is daft to have a bag of caster as well as granulated.
      J x

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  2. Just about the only thing that I use caster sugar for is a sponge, and I whizz mine from granulated. Crumble is one of our favourite puddings with any fruit under and a swirl of custard, heaven in a dish.

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    1. It's a brilliant and simple dessert, especially on a winter's day like today. I don't have it often so when I do it's a real treat.
      J x

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  3. Love crumble. We don't have it often and when we do I put hardly any sugar in as I'm diabetic. My mum used to make it for us often, she put oats and sometimes chopped nuts in hers. It was usually apple or tinned peaches - cheap puddings to fill us up, I guess. We loved them though, especially with evaporated milk.

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    1. I've put in a fair amount of sugar as I'm making it for mum and dad as well as for me but I agree, the sugar content can vary considerably and the fruit can sweeten it a lot as well. It's just a very scrummy and simple dessert.
      J x

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  4. It's a crumble kind of season, isn't it. We love crumbles too. Apple and a jar of mincemeat is one of my favourites but a bit pricey. We're eating raspberry and apple a lot lately since I got several packs of raspberries for only 32p each in a lucky shop at Tesco. Yes, it's your blog so you write anything you like. That's what I do and if anyone doesn't like it, they can take a look another day. Don't think I've seen your blog before, but it looks like the sort I enjoy.

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    1. Hi, Eloise, lovely to meet you" I never thought of mincemeat but I have some home made left over from Christmas 2016 so I will give that a go as it sounds wonderful.
      That was an amazing raspberry find - fantastic.
      Now I'm hoping I can find your blog and return the compliment. :-)
      J x
      J x

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  5. You'll know by now that I've been trawling backwards through your posts...and really enjoying them. Do try the mincemeat. I discovered it by accident when I realised that I only had a couple of cooking apples but several people to feed. Now it's a favourite.

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    1. I will, thanks very much. So glad you are enjoying the posts. May I ask where or how you found me?
      J x

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  6. Hi Joy, Ok, here is the whole story! About a year ago I read something in the newspaper about Ilona (Mean Queen). I'd never read a blog before but decided to look it up. From her list of blogs she reads, I started to look at a few others and found Marlene's Simple living 31 blog which I've been reading for a while. From there I found A challenging year on a Welsh hillside, and yesterday, from there, I found you. Last year in April I decided to have a go at writing my own. It was really slow at first but gradually I have more people commenting. It's a nice community.

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    1. I love Ilona's blog and A Challenging Year but I don't know the other one so I go on a bear hunt for it, thanks.
      And yours too, of course.
      J x

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