thursday recipe: apple, pear and banana crumble

We were invited to a friend's place for dinner, I offered to bring dessert. It started out as apple crumble but then I saw pears and thought I'll add those too. My husband Pete who is not a recipe follower (or rule follower fullstop for that matter) asked if I could put banana in it.
Banana?!! Eeew I thought.

I decided to put in one banana just for him and to put it down one end so if like me everyone else eating the crumble wanted to avoid the banana they could. In the spirit of breaking with tradition I threw a handful of chocolate chips on top of the crumble. Like the banana, the choc chips were met with a mixed response.

Is there anything better than eating fruit crumble sitting by the fire?

The options for crumble topping are endless. My favorite includes nuts, this topping however is very basic because I made it when we were staying in a holiday unit with very limited pantry essentials.

We ate this with store bought vanilla ice cream which the kids loved! I don't travel with an ice cream maker :) The crumble is pictured here with natural yoghurt. Vanilla custard would be delicious too.
I'll stop now.

What's your favorite crumble combo? Tell us in the comments and feel free to leave a link to recipes.

Apple, pear and banana crumble

Ingredients

5 apples (Granny Smith are good), peeled, cored and chopped (peeling optional)
3 pears, peeled, cored and chopped (peeling optional)
1/2 cup water
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 banana peeled and chopped into 4 or 5 pieces
1/2 cup oats
1 cup brown rice flour
100 grams butter
10 dried dates
1/2 cup sultanas
a smattering of chocolate chips

To make

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
Place apples, pears, water and cinnamon in a saucepan and cook over a medium heat until fruit is just starting to soften, about 10 minutes.
While the fruit is cooking, rub the butter into the flour and then stir in the oats and chocolate chips.
Grease an oven proof dish with butter.
When the fruit is just cooked pour the fruit and some of the liquid into the oven proof dish, don't flood the dish with liquid but leave some in so it is nice and moist.
Stir the dates and sultanas into the fruit mixture.
Cover the fruit with the crumble topping and place in the oven until golden brown, about 15 - 20 minutes.

rhubarb, apple and plum crumble

There is a theme emerging here. Cake last Monday, crumble today, must be the cooler autumn weather bringing on all this baking.  

I picked up a bunch of rhubarb from our local organic farm along with half a dozen beautiful plums and what else was there to do but make crumble?

Rhubarb is ridiculously easy to grow, well so I am told we haven't ever given it a go but I think I will because it is such a beautiful colour and I love to eat it plus I've just read up on the fact that it is rich in the B vitamins as well as vitamin A and K. For those who don't know already, the leaves on a rhubarb plant are poisonous so do not use them in your crumble.

A word about sweeteners: I used honey and raw sugar in this and I found the crumble topping a bit too sugary. That is because I generally don't eat sugar. I had been using powdered stevia but recently decided I really wasn't totally happy with the taste or texture it gives to cakes and biscuits so I haven't bought any for a while. I keep raw sugar in the cupboard for visitors cups of tea and coffee, that is how I came to include it in this recipe and if I were to do it again I would reduce the amount, but you can do what suits your tastebuds. I am imagining that a crumble made with maple syrup would be pretty delicious. Which sweeteners are you using at the moment? What do you sweeten your crumble with?

Recipe: rhubarb, apple and plum crumble

Ingredients

6 stems of rhubarb chopped into 1.5-2cm pieces

1 medium size granny smith apple, cored and roughly chopped (I leave the peel on)

1 or two plums such as blood plums, remove stone and roughly chop

1 tbsp honey

3/4 cup self-raising flour (I used gluten free)

3/4 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup coconut

100gm butter cubed

2-3 tbsp raw or rapadura sugar

*optional you could add some chopped walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts and some seeds to the crumble

Method

Preheat oven to 180C

Grease an oven proof dish with butter, I used a small rectangular pan you could use a round one or individual ramekins

Place fruit into baking dish 

Mix honey through the fruit and make sure the fruit is in an even layer

In a mixing bowl combine flour, oats, coconut and sugar

Rub butter into flour mixture until the butter cubes are completely rubbed in

Scatter crumble mixture evenly over the top of the fruit

Bake for 40-45 minutes until fruit is cooked and top is golden brown

Serve with custard or ice cream, or natural unsweetened yoghurt as pictured above.

Enjoy and hide the rest from your husband like I had to!

What is your favorite crumble combo? Pear and ginger is next on my ideas list.