Pear, Apple and Chocolate Crumble

Good morning lovely lockdowners…here we are, the sun has decided it needs a break so to cheer everyone up I thought it was time for another pudding.  However it might not be the obvious choice for a June pudding, not a delicious, fruit soaked bready summery summer pud (its time will come though…) but a decadently fruity chocolatey crumble.  So use the excuse that the weather is looking a little crumble-like and dig out those scales.  If the sun does reappear, it’s really not a problem, let the crumble cool down and cover it in lashings of double cream…or even ice cream.

We are so lucky that we are all enjoying these fabulous fruit and veg boxes, and our supplier has just started an English Summer box which is amazing, but because they now include amazing English strawberries and raspberries the apples and pears are sadly being left in the fruit bowl looking dejected and possibly a little wrinkly.  Fear not, as this crumble will cheer them up no end.  First they are poached in lemon zest and sugar and then they happily nestle into the dish with some dark chocolate chunks, stem ginger and then a duvet of oaty crumble mix which for me is the only crumble topping to have.  We are nut free here but you could add some hazelnuts to this crumble topping to give it some more crunch.

It went down pretty well here, quite a treat for a week night frankly, but its so quick and easy so why not hey?  No boring vanilla ice cream here though, my three opted for Honey and Lavender ice cream or Raspberry Sorbet as you can see….  Any of you locals guess where we got those incredible flavours from…?
Fondest love,
Lucy xx

Pear, Apple and Chocolate Crumble x 8

4 pears and 4 apples, peeled and cut into chunks

zest and juice of 1 lemon (don’t forget to do the zest first!)

50g golden caster sugar (or caster if you don’t have)

100g dark chocolate, roughly cut into chunks

3 lumps of stem ginger chopped into small pieces

175g butter, diced

200g plain flour

100g oats

100g demerara sugar

Preheat your oven to 180 C

1. Pop your fruit, the 50g sugar and the lemon juice and zest into a lidded pan and put on a medium heat for approx 10 minutes, gently simmering with the lid on until the fruit is tender.
2. Either rub the butter and flour together with your fingers, or put into the food processor until it resembles bread crumbs.
3. Stir the oats and demerara sugar into the crumble mixture.
4. Spoon the fruit and juice into an ovenproof dish, and crumble the chocolate and ginger evenly over the top.
5. Into the oven for 25-30 minutes until golden and starting to bubble at the edges.

Serve with custard, cream ice-cream or all three!!