ANZAC Biscuit Inspired Fruit Crumble

This recipe idea came to me not long after I woke up today, and since I actually remembered the idea after I had properly woken up and got ready for the day, I just had to make it.

This crumble is based on the Weeknight Strawberry and Apple Crumble from my cookbook, Everyday Bakes. It’s a pretty flexible recipe and makes enough to generously feed four people. 

I always like using apples as the base of my crumble, very finely sliced. You can play around with what other fruit you would like to add. I find a punnet of strawberries goes well, and this time I also added in some already cooked rhubarb I had. You could add berries, pears, stone fruit, or poached quince if you have some already. The quantities for the fruit don’t need to be exact, just make sure you don’t overfill your baking dish or you may end up with any fruit juices overflowing from the dish during baking. 

The crumble topping is inspired by ANZAC Biscuits, using oats, brown sugar, coconut and golden syrup, which I’m sure many of us are thinking about making this weekend. I hope this crumble will be a nice thing to make and enjoy this long weekend, along with a batch or two of ANZAC Biscuits.

ANZAC Biscuit Inspired Fruit Crumble

Ingredients:

40g unsalted butter, softened

50g rolled oats (not instant oats)

50g plain flour

50g brown sugar

20g shredded coconut

1 tsp golden syrup

x2 small apples (I prefer Pink Lady apples) 

250g strawberries

Cooked rhubarb*, optional

2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, oats, flour, sugar and coconut until everything is well combined. You can use your fingers to rub everything together. Once well combined, add in the golden syrup and mix with a spoon until it is fairly well incorporated. 

Finely slice the apples (no need to peel them!) and hull and quarter the strawberries. Place the fruit into a 1.25L/5 cup capacity baking dish - one that is wider and shallower instead of narrow and deep will work better for this recipe. 

If you have any cooked or stewed rhubarb you can mix some of that in now as well, just enough so your baking dish is not overly full and you still have ample room for the crumble topping without everything spilling over the sides. You could also add in any other berries (approx. 125g), one stone fruit that is finely sliced, a finely sliced pear or an additional apple if you wish. 

Toss the vanilla into the fruit and press the fruit mixture down a little so the crumble topping has a relatively even surface to sit on. Then top with the crumble topping so it evenly covers the surface.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown.

Serve warm with ice cream or cream.

If there are any leftovers, allow the crumble to cool down then cover and keep in the the fridge.

Serves four, generously.

* I used some pot roasted rhubarb I had made from Sophie Hansen and Annie Herron’s new book Around the Kitchen Table. I used the cooked cut up stalks (about 15 individual pieces of varying sizes), and allowed most of the cooking juice to drip off before adding to the crumble. 

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

When I’m working, and there are early mornings, long days and lots of travel ahead, the last thing I feel like doing when I wake up is make breakfast. However, breakfast is exactly what I need to start those kinds of work days off on the right foot. I tend to opt for quick things like toast, though they don’t keep me full for very long. Every so often however, I find something for breakfast that I really like, and can be made in advance and quickly re-heated and eaten before the work day begins. 

A couple of years ago I started making a double batch of these pancakes on the weekend, then kept enough for two per day in the fridge for the working week, or freeze them to defrost in the microwave each morning. While reheated pancakes don’t have the same ring to them as freshly made, I found it so much easier to wake up each morning knowing I had something nice to eat. I made sure I had some nice maple syrup, honey or fresh honeycomb, berries or other fruit and yoghurt to eat with them and it made the start to the day so much easier. 

I have since found a few more breakfasts that can be made in advance, including the crumpets in this recent post, and this Muesli Breakfast Crumble. The crumble is inspired by the dessert crumble I made last year, which I loved, and some homemade muesli I was gifted from a friend at work who later gave me the recipe. I have used finely sliced Pink Lady apples and poached quince as my fruit filling for this Breakfast Crumble, however almost any fruit combination will work. Stone fruit and berries would be amazing in Summer, and rhubarb in Winter. The quantities of the fruit don’t matter so much, as long as they fill your baking dish with enough room for the crumble topping to sit on top. 

What are your tips for easy and tasty breakfasts during the work week? 

Also just a little note to say I'm going to be putting together a (mostly) weekly newsletter, filled with recipes, tips, tricks and recommendations you won't find here on the blog! I'm hoping to share even more exclusive content via the newsletter soon, so click here to sign up! 

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar - used in crumble mixture

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Ingredients: 

x3 small apples, I prefer Pink Lady, finely sliced then roughly chopped

1.5-2 large poached quinces, roughly chopped

2 tbsp quince poaching liquid

1 Grounded Pleasures Vanilla Bean, seeds scraped

60g wholemeal plain flour

60g oats

1/2 tsp cinnamon

50g margarine or softened unsalted butter

20g sunflower kernels

15g chia seeds

75g Grounded Pleasures Organic Panela Sugar

25g pepitas

30g slivered almonds 

Greek yoghurt, to serve

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Mix the apple, quince, poaching liquid and vanilla bean seeds in a baking dish (interior dimensions approx. 24 x 19.5 x 6.5cm), then set aside. 

In a medium/large bowl combine the flour, oats, cinnamon, margarine, sunflower kernels, chia seeds, Panela sugar, pepitas and almonds, until they are well combined and the margarine has evenly dispersed. 

Spoon the muesli crumble mixture over the apples and quince in the baking dish, ensuring the entire surface of the dish is evenly covered. 

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the crumble topping is golden. Serve warm from the oven with Greek yoghurt or reheat portions for easy breakfasts later on. 

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Muesli Breakfast Crumble

Thanks to Grounded Pleasures for sponsoring this post and providing the yummy Panela Sugar & Vanilla Beans! 

Quince & Apple Crumble + How to Make Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (Egg Free)

This recipe is highly inspired by my Grandma’s cooking. Although I don’t think she ever poached quince or made her own ice cream, crumbles were definitely a staple dessert in her house. Rhubarb was the filling I remember most and as I have alluded to before, I would not try the Rhubarb Crumble’s my Grandma made. This was in protest of the fact that the dessert wasn’t Pavlova, which was, to me the only obvious choice for dessert at any time of year. 

My Grandma’s Pavlova was my absolute favourite (still evidenced by how many times it has appeared in some form on this blog!), and I remember feeling such bitter disappointment when I noticed it had not been my Grandma’s chosen dessert that evening. While the pink hue of the rhubarb should have drawn my interest as a child, I was firmly opposed to the idea of eating a vegetable in a dessert, even if it was served with ice cream. I would then moodily sit eating my plain vanilla ice cream, hoping our next visit would include my favourite Pavlova. 

Now being older and having made much more of an effort to try new foods, I have come around the to humble crumble. I could not however find amongst my Grandma’s hand written recipes, a recipe for any type of crumble. It is likely it was something she started making later in life, maybe seeing it made on one of the cooking shows on TV she liked watching, or amongst the recipes found in the newspaper. I did however stumble across a little section in her copy of ‘Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course’ on crumbles and I guess it is also possible the recipe she used or was inspired by came from there. The book is ‘a new edition for the 1990s’, which would fit in well with my thought that she made many more crumbles later in life. It also fits in rather perfectly with my childhood memory of boycotting her rhubarb crumble. 

My Grandma’s copy of Delia’s book, looks somewhat used, maybe just a little less so than her handwritten notebooks and recipe books from the 1950s. A few pages are marked with scraps of paper with handwritten recipes on them (including a lemon sponge and oatmeal cookies), and a couple of cut outs from the food section of a newspaper (one recipe and one reader cooking tip). There is also a bookmark from the Stroke Foundation holding the place between Spanish Pork with Olives and Ossobuco in the ‘Meat: Casseroles and Braised Dishes’ section. Such a find is slightly bittersweet considering how my Grandma’s life came to an end, but also a reminder of her understanding of her vulnerabilities and attention to preventing them.

Finding little notes, recipes and newspaper cut outs in my Grandma’s cookbooks give me little snapshots and reminders of her every time, and maybe one day in another book I’ll find a scrap of paper with a recipe for her crumble. 

For my crumble recipe I have used a combination of fruit which is slightly more Winter-y, however I thought equally as delicious and satisfying during any season. If you have some poached quinces definitely use them, they work so well with the crumble topping. If you wish to substitute the quinces for something else, I would suggest rhubarb (of course!), either sliced finely with a mandolin or lightly softened on the stove first - just keep the quantity of rhubarb about the same as the quinces or so it fits nicely into the dish you are using. If making, the ice cream should be made earlier in the day or the night before so it has ample time to freeze. It is quite a simple ice cream recipe, requiring no eggs just some sugar, milk, cream and vanilla. I would suggest doubling the ice cream recipe if you wish to feed more than 5 or so people. 

Homemade (Easy) Vanilla Ice Cream

Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream (Egg Free)

Ingredients: 

165ml full cream milk 

6 tbsp white sugar

250ml pouring cream 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2 tbsp vanilla bean paste 

Method: 

Whisk the milk and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved and the milk has become frothy. Then add the cream and both vanillas and whisk until combined. 

Transfer mixture into the bowl of an ice cream machine, and process according to machine instructions. I found the churning process took about 10-15 minutes. Once ready, transfer ice cream into a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 2 or 3 hours. 

Quince and Apple Crumble

Ingredients: 

6 poached quince, approx. 930g 

2 Pink Lady Apples, approx. 250g

2 very small pears, approx. 140g 

2 tbsp quince poaching liquid

2 tsp vanilla bean paste

75g unsalted butter, softened and cubed

110g plain flour 

110g oats (not instant) 

110g brown sugar 

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon 

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Remove the poached quinces from their poaching liquid, reserving the liquid. Roughly chop the quinces and place into a large mixing bowl. 

Very finely slice the apples and pears (I used a mandolin), discarding the cores. Place in the bowl with the quince and gently mix together. Add the vanilla bean paste and the quince poaching liquid and mix again. Then tip the mixture into a 2-2.5L capacity pie/gratin/baking dish. Spread the mixture out so it sits in the dish evenly. 

To make the crumble topping place the flour, oats and cinnamon into a mixing bowl then add the butter. Rub the butter into the flour and oats until the mixture starts to look crumbly. Add the sugar and mix well. 

Spoon the crumble mixture over the fruit ensuring it is evenly dispersed. The thickness of your crumble topping will depend on the size and depth of your dish. I used a fairly deep dish so I ended up with a nice thick crumble topping. 

Cook crumble for 30-40 minutes, or until the top has turned lightly golden brown. 

Serve warm with the vanilla ice cream. 

References: ‘Lomelino’s Ice Cream’ by Linda Lomelino (Roost Books, 2015), p.13: ‘Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course’ by Delia Smith (BBC Books, 1998), pp. 594-5.