Cinnamon Apple Crumble with salted caramel sauce

As I’ve said before, crumble is the ultimate in autumn-winter food. These days, when our daylight has been reduced to about 3 hours, there is nothing more comforting than snuggling up with a great book (or an old episode of the West Wing realistically) and tucking into a huge bowl of this unadulterated goodness. You can also smugly note that (even now in November) you can use fantastic Irish apples that are totally in season.

This isn’t much of an upgrade on your average apple crumble, but adding a good amount of cinnamon, along with this glorious caramel sauce elevates it to another level of chicness. It is also a terribly easy recipe, so no excuses – the rewards, for a very small amount of work, are enormous.

For the caramel sauce

I use the recipe from the hilariously irreverent Hope and Greenwood book,  which is used to make chocolate caramels (also divine).

55ml (2fl oz) double cream

½ level tbsp dark muscovado sugar

15g (½ oz) caster sugar

Sea-salt flakes

1. To make the salted caramel, put the cream and dark muscavado sugar into a jar and rest it in a heatproof bowl of boiling water to warm gently, ensuring no water gets into the sugar and cream.

2. Pour the caster sugar into a small heavy-based pan and lodge on low to medium heat to ‘melt’ the sugar- keep watching it – this is the important part. It will eventually dissolve, and then very quickly become dark and golden, so do stay focussed!

3. When it has reached this stage, take the pan off the heat and add in the warmed cream and muscovado – the pan will bubble up furiously. Stir, stir and stir with a wooden spoon to make a lovely caramel. Cool a bit, then stir in the salt. Serve slightly warmed, for best results.

Note: if you leave this in the fridge, it will set somewhat, but just gently warm it through in the micro/on the hob, and it will return to its original saucy self.

For the crumble

4 large cooking apples

6oz cream white flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

4oz dark brown sugar (muscavado)

6oz butter, melted

Handful porridge oats

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Place all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix so that all are evenly distributed.

2. Incorporate the melted butter using a fork so that little clumps form in the very rough crumble mixture.

3. Peel, core and chop the apples into chunks. Place in a heavy bottomed saucepan, add about 3 tbsp of water and place on a medium heat.

4. Allow the fruit to stew until just tender (I like my crumble still to have a nice amount of bite to it.), then remove from the heat.

5. Place the apples in a deep ceramic dish, drizzle with a bit of golden syrup, and cover with the crumble rubble. Bake in a preheated oven (180C) for 20-25 minutes until the crumble is golden, and the apples are bubbling up the side of the dish.

6. Serve with greek yoghurt and caramel sauce.

Ruth’s Raspberry Flapjacks

As a said before, I am actually not much of a baker – in fact, if it was up to me, I’d stick to cooking and leave the precise art of baking to those more skilled than I. This is a recipe used almost monthly in our house – we love flapjacks, especially the raspberry variety. Chocolate is good too, but we have found that because it melts almost immediately when you stir it in, it can be a bit of a waste. (Why not just have chocolate with your raspberry flapjack? Problem solved.)

I don’t know where the recipe came from originally, but I think it comes close enough to the Rachel Allen version in the pink book with lemons on the inner cover. Wherever it is from, it is almost completely foolproof – no flour, no eggs, no baking powder, and very little chance of serving it raw or burning down the kitchen, it is ideal for the not so experienced baker. They’ll keep for at least 3 days in a tin if you (by some miracle) don’t gobble them out of the baking tin.

Makes 25 to 30 flapjacks

350g butter, cubed

3 tbsp golden syrup

175g soft light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

375g oats

100g raspberries

1.Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius

2.Place the butter, golden syrup, sugar and vanilla extract in a large saucepan.  Bring up to a simmer and stir allowing the butter to melt.

3.When the mixture is smooth, take off the heat and add the raspberries and oats.  Stir to mix and spread into a swiss roll tin measuring 25 x 35 cm.

4.Bake in the oven for 20-25 mins until golden. Move to a wire rack to cool.

Homemade Granola

I know people just sing its praises, but I’ve found I just can’t get on the porridge bandwagon – the only way I’ll stomach even a spoonful is if it is laced with golden syrup or some such badness, and therefore defeating the purpose entirely I think. So apart from all the breakfasty delights like pancakes and waffles (and rashers), half of which would qualify as dessert, you are left with few options for a healthy breakfast that don’t leave you reaching for the vending machine (never..) at 11.00am. I think granola is a great compromise between muesli and the like of cornflakes in that it doesn’t taste like twigs, yet doesn’t contain a chocolate bar’s worth of sugar. When you make your own, you save on moolah, calories and also all that time you spend picking out the dried cranberries (just me then?).

This, again, is not so much a recipe as some guidelines – toss in dried fruit or more nuts if that floats your boat. The proportions vary – this is not something for which you’ll need to pull out the weighing scales. Oats are your base, coconut oil is your fat, honey or agave is your sugar and the rest is up to you…

200g oats

3 tbsp coconut oil

2 tbsp agave/honey

Sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, linseed…

Flaked almonds, chopped hazelnuts/macadamia/brazil nuts

Use a flatish tray, and spread the dry ingredients out on it. Drizzle over the coconut oil and the agave. Mix everything together allowing some of the mix to form in clumps. Bake in a hot oven for 10 minutes – watch it like a hawk, it will burn in an instant.

As a treat I layered my granola with natural yoghurt and raspberry compote in a pretty glass – feels luxurious but fairly okay to have on a Wednesday morning.Enjoy..

 

If I call you darling…

Will you make me pancakes?

Or more specifically, Drop scones with roasted nectarines, golden syrup and chopped hazelnuts. Pretty please..

100g Flour

25g Sugar

1 tsp Baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 egg

125 ml Milk

Knob of butter

Nectarine

Handful of nuts

The drop scone recipe is Darina Allen’s, from the Ballymaloe Cookery Course Book. Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl and stir to combine. Beat in one egg, then add the milk slowly and whisk until you’ve got a smooth creamy looking mixture, but that isn’t watery. Leave to stand.

Cut the nectarine in half around the stone, twist the 2 sides apart and cut out the stone. Pop in a hot oven for about 40 minutes, depending on how ripe it is. You are looking for the fruit to be quite soft, but still holding its shape. Cut into wedges.

Heat a non-stick frying pan on the hob. Add a knob of butter, and let it sizzle. When you can’t hear the sizzle anymore, add a ladle of batter. Cook for 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then turn with a fish-slice. You are looking for little bubbles appearing in the pancake, which is the baking powder acting. This is what makes the drop scones fluffy. Cook until golden brown on the other side.

Coat with golden syrup, slices of nectarines and a handful of toasted hazelnuts. Serve immediately!