On crumbles

AND STREUSELS, BROWN BETTYS, COBBLERS AND FUMBLES TOO

We are babysitting tonight and have been promised dinner as well, so I thought I would take along a crumble for dessert - we found some bargain pears yesterday and I had a few blueberries leftover from making muffins. I meant to make it just for us yesterday but ran out of steam as dinnertime approached. So we had a muffin each instead. Not that we have desserts very often. Crumble though is a family favourite. Another English dish which, according to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is now popular with the French:

"These homey puds are certainly not fine patisserie. They’re designed not to seduce the eye so much as to have rural rumpy-pumpy with your tastebuds. And they’re perfect for the pastry-challenged. There’s no rolling, no wrestling with tricky dough, no blind baking. Just a bit of chopping and mixing stands between you and hot, fruity pleasure. The crumble is, rightly, a national institution. So it’s surprising that we’ve only really been making them since the second World War. We’ve even exported them to France, where they can’t get enough of “le crumble.” Our humble, bumbling, tummy-rumbling crumble now rubs shoulders with crème brûlée and tarte au citron. And so it should." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Further investigation did indeed confirm that it is a WW2 dish with the reasoning that it resulted from shortages in ingredients. Which I really don't understand. After all the only difference between a basic crumble mix and shortcrust pastry is the addition of water - which was presumably available even in WW2. The butter and the flour and the sugar are the main things and these would surely have been the things in short supply. Anyway I won't quibble over its origins.

I'm not even going to bother to give a recipe. Google it and you will get oodles, and besides you probably all know how to make one. It's one of those things we learnt from our mothers. Interestingly - from my own collection of recipe books, Elizabeth David doesn't mention it at all, Robert Carrier does not include it in his Great Dishes of the World and Jane Grigson only has a couple of recipes. Delia loves it though and has all sorts of variations including this yummy looking rhubarb crumble ice-cream.

Jamie, Nigella, and Nigel Slater also give lots of variations. Nigella puts her crumble in the freezer for 10 minutes before putting it on top of the fruit and cooking it. She claims it makes it crunchier. Jamie has a flapjack crumble in which there is a flapjack base underneath the fruit.

For myself I rub the butter in by hand, I add a few oats and some lemon and orange peel and also some spices, according to what fruit I am dealing with. And it's all more or less done by eye. Other additions I have seen elsewhere are nuts of various kinds. You can make it in the food processor too of course, but pulse rather than blend continuously or the crumble will be too fine. The fruit underneath could be anything of course - and I don't cook mine first. Opinions differ as to what fruit makes the best crumble - I have seen plums and gooseberries suggested - I think I like rhubarb.

The variations mentioned in the title are slightly different. Brown Bettys are made with breadcrumbs rather than flour, and Cobblers are covered with a crumbly kind of batter.

A streusel though is basically the same thing. I was first introduced to the notion of streusels with one of Robert Carrier's cookery cards and his Apple streusel, which is an apple tart with a crumble topping. We all love it and I make it when I have a little more energy. Nowadays there are endless recipes for streusel cakes, and tarts. Basically, like Robert Carrier's tart you sprinkle a crumble topping on top of your cake. I have made several and they are very nice. Alas, none so nice as a yoghurt cake I made many years ago from a recipe from a women's magazine in which the streusel-like topping sank down into the cake somehow. I have lost the recipe and although I have searched high and low have never found a substitute.

In his Love Your Leftovers book Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall suggests making a big batch of crumble at a time and storing the extra in a jar for use anytime. He also has a dish called a Fumble which is a sort of Fruit Fool, or trifle. Basically what you do is swirl some fruit - stewed, puréed or fresh with something creamy - custard, cream, crème fraiche, yoghurt, ricotta, mascarpone and then top with some crumble. Quick, beautiful to look at and delicious.

So - more comfort food. More English food. I'm really a very conservative cook I discover!

"Crumble of any sort fills the kitchen with possibly the most reassuring smell on God's earth, but it is amplified when you add the sweet spices, cinnamon, clove (a very little) and nutmeg. It is worth a shake or two of ground cinnamon in the crumb crust for an apple pudding. Cardamom is one to use with apple, too. Hot fruit, crumb topping, warm spice. It sounds like we have all died and gone to heaven." Nigel Slater