Crumble topping..

[seeker]

Has anyone got a really delicious crumble recipe? Mine is OK - but I've had better. Can I try yours?

I use a bit of porridge oats in my crumble topping. I don't have a specific ratio though. A slice of butter, wholemeal flour, demarera sugar and oats in the magimix. blitz until it's the right texture, too wet and I add more flour/oats, too dry and I add a little melted butter or maple syrup.

I have one with a mix of flour and ground almonds if you want? In fact I think it is Delia's.

I find if you try using something other than butter it doesn't turn out as nice. Are you using butter?

I use the recipe from my late Gran's Bero book:
4oz flour
2oz sugar
2oz butter

Just rub it all together and put sprinkle a little brown sugar on top when you've assembled the crumble.

It very basic but totally delicious

I used to use chopped nuts but my ds hates anything with nuts in. I wonder if he'd notice ground almonds? I use butter, but it always turns out a bit powdery - it's the texture rather than the taste I'm not getting right. I think the porridge oats might help - might try that tonight. Does everyone use demarara sugar? That might be where I'm going wrong too -I just use ordinary granulated.

I use gingertoo's proportions.

yy use demarara sugar, lovely and crunchy

If it's powdery use one tbsp less flour than you usually use. Are you mixing it my hand of putting it in a food processor?

and what temp is you oven? Maybe it is too low?

Food processor. AH, am I over processing it?

OK.
Demarara sugar, handful of porridge oats instead of some of the flour and made by hand sounds like the way to go.

I wonder if I put too much on, as well.

Who knew there was so much to think about in crumbles!

lol complex things, crumbles!

Yes, you are overprocessing it an dpossibly piling too much on top of the fruit. If you've got more than a cm of topping I'd say it's too much.

hth

ok, maybe a bit more than a cm

I'll report back after my trained team of quality control experts deliver their verdict!

soft brown sugar and half flour half porridge oats

One trick I saw in a reasturant to produce really yummy individual crumbles straight out of the freezer was as follows.

Put fruit mix in individual ramakins as usual and freeze it. Pre-cook a mix of crumble, muesli, flaked almonds, demerera sugar as per the mixes others have suggested but just bake the cruble on a shallow baking sheet (not too browned) in the oven then also freeze that in a plastic bag.

Then on the day, take out enough ramakins nd crumble mix to serve your guests or just yourself. Microwave the ramakins until the fruit mix melted and boiling. Then scatter crumble mix on top and grill off to brown.

Individual crumbles, piping hot but not soggy, but without the faff on the day in about 10 mins.

ABetaDad I do a similar thing to that, where I cook crumble mix on it's own, then crumble it all up and while still hot serve it with fresh bananas and custard.

i add grated orange to the mix, and sprinkle roasted pine nuts on the top. Agree, you have to use butter too.

For crumbles would definitely rub in the butter by hand, if you process it the texture goes far too uniform. You want nubbly bits of different sizes imo.

I use a mix of demerara (for crunch) and muscovado (for taste). I have never used ground almonds, however for apple crumbles I add a good shake of cinnamon. For rhubarb I would not add cinammon but I would slice a thumb of preserved ginger to go in with rhubarb, and also sprinkle some ground ginger into the crumble mix.

Also, use salted butter not lurpak lightly/unsalted butter types. The salt adds a certain something.

I never had much luck with the topping until I used the Netmums cookbook one:

75g butter
25g demerara sugar (doesn't have to be demerara)
125g flour
2 tbs porridge oats added to the dried mix
2 tbs chopped hazelnuts added to the crumbled mix

You don't really notice the chopped nuts in it because of the texture of the crumble.

I think the main difference between this and what I was doing before is that there is much more butter in it than I would probably have used otherwise.

And I crumble by hand.

Chopstheduck you gtated an orange! I assume you mean you grated the skin for the zest

GetOrf I agree, it needs some salt.

I know! i noticed that after I pressed send, and hoped no one would pick me up on it!

Spices are nice in the crumble mix too, cinnamon added to the mix on an apple crumble is delicious