Now, when it comes to baking recipes, I find myself relying on Nigella heavily. She is not a trained chef but from my experience, she does have very straightforward recipes that usually deliver good results. I found a berry crumble recipe from her cookbook, Nigella Express, and went on a berry crumble making trial one night. I made the dessert in 2 ramekins, one for my husband and one for myself.
The verdict? Quite a disaster I have to say. In fact, even my husband who normally can't even tell if a cake is under or overcooked said it tasted like green tea (I believe he was trying to be tactful and green tea was the best description he could use). I was disappointed. I make tiramisu, and I bake fancy cheesecakes. How hard can a berry crumble be? Seriously?!
I went online and googled for lots of crumble recipes. And I flipped thru all my cookbooks again. In the end, I decided to make another berry crumble that same night (yes, that is how crazy I can be when it comes to cooking and baking). But this time I was going with my instincts and decided to not follow any recipe.
The result:
It was heavenly. Okay that may sound like I am boasting but really, it was a good berry cumble. I forgot to take a picture before my husband started gobbling it down so this is a half eaten crumble. I would have served it with vanilla ice-cream on top but I wanted to taste the crumble and the berries to make sure that they did turn out the way I had hoped for.
So here's my Anyhow Crumble Recipe:
Topping (I did not make much changes to the original recipe from Nigella)
100g plain flour
50g cold unsalted butter cut into cubes
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 tbs soft brown sugar
- Rub the butter into the flour and baking powder with your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse sand.
- Mix in the brown sugar.
- Put the mixture into a ziplock bag and put it in the freezer.
Note: Always keep a bag of such crumble topping in the freezer so that you can put together a berry crumble dessert easily.
Berry Crumble
- Put a good amount of mixed frozen berries in a ramekin (about 3/4 full).
- Sprinkle a good amount of icing sugar to coat the berries (you do need a quite a bit of sugar here as berries are usually tart and you would want the berry crumble to come out sweet rather than sharp).
- Put crumble topping to fully cover the sugar coated berries
- Put the berry crumble in the preheated oven (at 200 deg C) for 15 min. The dessert is ready when the crumble topping turns golden brown.
- Serve warm and topped with vanilla ice-cream.
This is a really fuss free dessert that can be whipped up within minutes. The crumble topping can be made in a big batch and kept in the freezer so anytime you want to have a berry crumble, it will only take you literally 5 minutes to assemble the topping and frozen berries together and just 15 minutes to bake. You don't even need to be an experienced baker to make this delicious dessert. Anyone can do it! I made this for a friend who was hanging out at my place the other day and she asked for the recipe. It must have been gooood.
And the lesson I learnt from this crumble making episode?
Sometimes I just have to trust my instincts and believe in myself. :)
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