Apple, pear & vanilla crumble with ginger cinnamon topping

". . . nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose . . ."

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

As a child, the creature created from quilted dead flesh by Dr Frankenstein never truly scared me. If anything, I felt sympathy for the creature who did not ask to be given life and who was abandoned by a society that deemed him monstrous as they did not understand him. The novel and film did however, spark an interest in the science fiction genre.

History aside, I have begun my post with a brief explanation of the origin of the fictional character many refer to as Frankenstein, as it is a term I use when I have 'pieced something together' (not when I have created something that will ultimately self destruct and kill me'.)

There are times when a recipe as a whole is disappointing, but when dissected into parts, I find bits and pieces that I love. I recently made this Deep-dish apple, pear and vanilla pies with crisp sage which as a whole, I did not care for. As it turns out, I was left with an abundance of the pie filling and thought perhaps I might rework it into a crumble and possibly yield a tastier result.

With a single purpose in mind, I serenely threw a bunch of ingredients together for the crumble and have written it out below.


Crumble topping

• 2/3 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• dash of ground cloves
  
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (45g) rolled oats
• 125g unsalted butter, chilled
• 1 tbs of whole hazelnuts

Mix dry ingredients together. Chop butter and toss into bowl, mix butter and dry ingredients together with fingertips until clumps have formed.

I preheated the oven to 190C and placed the left over apples and pears (perhaps 2 pears, 4 apples worth) from the Gourmet Traveller recipe into a glass dish and sprinkled the topping over it. I baked it for 20mins.

ease: 4.5/5. Lots of chopping for filling.
prep time: 30mins (I'm a slow peeler and dicer)
cooking time: 20mins.
total: 50mins.

taste: 4/5. The filling came to life when paired with the heady, warming spices. Hubby would have preferred a little less brown sugar as he doesn't like anything close to caramel in flavour. I would add another 1/4cup of oats as I love their chewiness. I poured in the syrupy juices that accumulated in the bowl from the fruit overnight, probably would leave that out next time as it made it a little too syrupy.

would I make it again: Yes - more oats and no fruit syrup next time.