Challenge #24: Slow Cooker Fruit Crumble

[miss_s_b]

(note to el_staplador: THIS is cutting it fine ;) )

Equipment needed:

• Slow cooker/crock pot
• a couple of mixing bowls.
• Chopping board and sharp knife, unless you buy your fruit precut.
• weighing scales
• 1 tbsp & 1 tsp measuring spoons

Ingredients (filling):

• 750g fruit (I like to do three quarters rhubarb and one quarter dried apricots, but cherries are good, and so are apples, and so are plums);
• Sugar to taste;
• spices to taste - I like cloves with rhubarb, cinnamon with apples or cherries;
• 1 tbsp cornflour;

Ingredients (topping):

• 150g plain flour;
• 150g muscovado sugar;
• 150g butter;
• spices to taste;
• A pinch of salt;
• 100g chopped nuts (optional: I like hazelnuts, but you'll see other people advocate walnuts or whatever. Use what you like).

Method:

• Put all the ingredients for the topping except the nuts (if you are even using nuts) in one of your mixing bowls and rub together with your fingertips till you get coarse breadcrumb texture.
• Stir in your nuts.
• In another mixing bowl stir together the sugar, spices and cornflour for the filling, and then stir in the fruit.
• put the fruity mix into the slow cooker.
• sprinkle the topping mix into the slow cooker too.
• Put the lid on, make sure the lid is well seated, and turn the slow cooker on to low.
• Cook for about 3 hours with the lid on.
• Cook for a further hour and a half with the lid off, so your topping is not soggy.

Serve with cream, ice cream, or a proper custard.

Comments

[el_staplador]

Fine, and also tasty. It had never occurred to me that crumble could go in the slow cooker!

[miss_s_b]

I actually read the recipe book that came with it ;)

"Cook something from a recipe book which came with an appliance" is totally going to be a future challenge, btw, because sometimes they are hilarious.

[hilarita]

Very, very occasionally they do work. I have a rice pilaf recipe that's actually reasonably good that came with my mother's microwave in about 1985ish. The microwave is dead, but the recipe lives on.

[miss_s_b]

I actually quite like the cake things you can make in the Breville sandwich toaster, so yes, sometimes the bizarre suggestions work.

[fred_mouse]

That sounds very tasty. As a person with multiple slow cookers (three teens, do I need to say more?) dessert options are always good.

[miss_s_b]

I have a mere 3 slow cookers: 1 big one with a standard bowl (Crock pot), 1 big one with a divided bowl (Morphy Richards) so I can do a spicy thing one side and a less spicy thing the other side because one of my household hates spicy things and the rest of us love spicy things, and one tiny one person slow cooker (Wilko).

I have found myself having to resist buying more. "Oooo that one is a slightly different size/style/has different settings!" etc.

[fred_mouse]

I, too, have three, but there are times when I wish for more, particularly when catering for large groups. I think they are 7L, 4L, and 2L (that this the one I take away with me, when we are staying in hotels/motels, and have packing space; also the one that gets used for dessert cooking). I now covet your divided one, because that would be wonderful for when I want to do small amounts of things.

[miss_s_b]

If you've got a cooker it will fit in, you can buy just the pot: https://www.morphyrichards.co.uk/spares-and-accessories/slow-cooker-spares/cooking-pots/

[fred_mouse]

Ooooh. Thank you!