berry and brown butter toast crumble

berry and brown butter toast crumble

• 8 Aug 2022

We've had a pretty cold winter this year so I've been indulging in wintery puddings. Not seen on the blog but enjoyed have been rice custard and lemon delicious pudding and I also made an excellent bread and butter pudding a few weeks ago using slices of sourdough fruit loaf

I know I haven't mentioned sourdough for a while but after a bit of a rocky patch in April where everything went pear shaped I went back to the drawing board. I sorted out my starter, worked out a schedule that fitted into my life and it's been good ever since. I usually bake a loaf of bread each week and I alternate between white, wholemeal or mixed grain tin loaves with a sourdough fruit loaf every month or so. 

With all this bread baking it does mean I have a few bread ends tucked away in the freezer and I'm always looking for ways to use up the excess so when I saw this Ottolenghi recipe for a berry crumble made using sourdough crumbs in an old Delicious magazine, I knew I had to make it.

I had a stalk of rhubarb in the fridge so I put that into the apple mix and as rhubarb is very tart I increased the sugar in the fruit mix. It did not go astray and the berry component was my favourite part of the dish. My other change? I don't eat cream so I mixed vanilla bean paste in with some Greek yoghurt and drizzled that over the crumble and it was delicious.

Here's the recipe for you adapted from here. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Berry and brown butter toast crumble - serves 4

Ingredients

3 Gala apples peeled, cored and cut into 8 wedges

1 stalk (75g) rhubarb cut into 1 cm slices

75g caster sugar

65g unsalted butter

¾ tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

¾ tsp ground cinnamon or star anise 

60g stale, crustless sourdough bread, roughly torn into 1cm pieces

50g rolled oats

pinch flaky sea salt

250g frozen mixed berries

To serve

1/3 cup (80mls) Greek yoghurt, cream or custard

Method

Heat the oven to 200°C. Place the apples and rhubarb, 50g of sugar, 15g butter, ½ tsp vanilla and 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon into a 20cm ovenproof dish and stir to combine. Transfer to the oven to bake for about 20 minutes, stirring halfway, until the apples have softened but still retain their shape.

While the apples are baking add the remaining 50g butter to a medium frypan over medium-high heat. Once melted, cook for about 4 minutes, swirling the pan often, until nicely browned and nutty, adjusting the temperature as needed to avoid burning. Transfer the browned butter to a large heatproof bowl and return the pan to the heat. Add the torn sourdough and cook, stirring often, for 2 minutes or until lightly toasted, then add to the bowl with the butter. Return the pan to the heat and add the oats and cook, stirring often, until lightly toasted, another 2 minutes. Add the oats to the bowl, along with the flaky sea salt, remaining 25g sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon or star anise, and stir to combine.

When the apples are ready, stir in the frozen mixed berries plus 1 tbs water, then top evenly with the bread mixture. Return to the oven, turning the heat down to 180°C, conventional and bake for 30 minutes or until golden and bubbling. Remove from the oven and stand for about 5-10 minutes to cool.

Add the cold yoghurt or cream and remaining ¼ tsp vanilla to a small bowl and stir to combine. Serve the crumble warm with the cold yoghurt or cream drizzled over the top.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian