Pear and berry crumble

I am a big fan of hot apple crumble with vanilla ice cream. It has that tart, creamy, crunchy thing going on and I love the contrast between the hot pie and the cold ice cream. The thing is, I’m not a fan of just plain apples so I usually have pears in my fruit basket and I always have frozen berries in the freezer as they are perfect to perk up a smoothie and are a great last minute dessert fail safe. So this is how my pear and berry crumble came about… you can use many different combinations of fruit and top it off with crumble. They just need to be fruits which lend themselves to being cooked.

Apples, pears, peaches, plums, rhubarb and berries are good tried and tested fruits which work well in pies. So be creative and come up with your own combinations. If the fruit is very tart add sugar, if it’s very sweet add less sugar and perhaps a squeeze of lemon juice. Tinned fruits work really well in pies and are great to have in the cupboard for when you need to whip up a last minute dessert or tea time treat.

I hate throwing food out so if I have allot of fruit fast approach its expiry date, a fruit crumble is often a good way to use it and a great excuse for a spontaneous dessert!

The recipe for this fruit crumble was for a dinner party I had last week and I experiment with the crumble part of a recipe I found in a cook book by Sonia Cabano called Easy, Simple and Delicious (a winner). I did modified it a bit but the addition of flaked almonds and ginger spice as she recommended was awesome.

I love the crazy way the blue berries turned my pears psychedelic purple!

Pear and berry crumble

Serves 6 (4 in my house)

1 x large (820g) tin of pears (drained) or 10 fresh pears, peeled, cored and sliced

200g of fresh or frozen berries (I used raspberries and blueberries)

½ cup of oats

50g of flaked almonds

½ cup of nutty wheat

½ cup of castor sugar

½ tsp of cinnamon

½ tsp of ground ginger

¼ tsp of salt

125g of butter

Pre heat your oven to 160C˚ and place the wrack in the middle of the oven.

Spread the fruit out into the bottom of a pie or casserole dish small enough to allow the pie to be at least 5 – 4cm thick.

Combine all the ingredients (except the fruit) in a mixing bowl. Using your finger tips rub the butter with the dry ingredients until they have formed light crumbs.

Spoon the crumbs lightly over the fruit and bake for about 25 minutes until the crumble is golden and crispy.

Serve with whipped cream, custard or ice cream.