mcnutcase: A grumpy-looking bearded person in glasses with long bright blue hair (Default)
mcnutcase ([personal profile] mcnutcase) wrote2023-11-30 07:05 pm
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A recipe, for easy finding and sharing of same.

So the grocery store thanksgiving meal kit included a pear crisp, which I loved but my wife was disappointed by. I suspected the walnut chunks, candied ginger, and so on were responsible for her dislike of it, and offered to make my own version, less fancy. I did, I still loved it, she didn't, but here's the recipe anyway because it was damned good and I want to put it somewhere I can share it.
McNutcase's Basic Bitch Pear-Apple Crumble
  • Two or three apples and/or pears (you want apples with some bite both flavor-wise and texture-wise; if I'd had easy access to Bramleys I'd have used those, but as it was I used Granny Smiths, and D'Anjou for the pears)
  • 2oz (weight) of brown sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg (freshly ground is best, but pre-ground is fine)
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
  • ½ teaspoon cornstarch
  • 1 lemon's worth of juice (if you've got the energy to do it, stripping the zest off of and squeezing out a lemon is great, but squeezy plastic container lemon juice will work just fine)
Peel the apple(s), quarter them, remove the core, and cut into chunky slices. Do the same with the pears except you don't peel them first if you don't want to. Dump the fruit into a mixing bowl, sprinkle on the spices (which you should feel free to experiment with and adjust to your tastes, I'm not the boss of you and this is just what I used this time), the cornstarch, the sugar, and the lemon juice. Stir it all around gently until everything's well mixed together and the sugar's dissolved into the lemon juice and coated everything, then dump it into the dish you'll be baking it in (I used an 8" square white glass dish, and had things just about perfect). Cover and put in the refrigerator while you get on with the rest of this.
  • 4oz (weight, yes, I do this stuff by weight, it's what I learned and scales are cheap nowadays) of all-purpose flour (or whatever substitute works for you if necessary)
  • 2oz granulated sugar
  • 1oz finely chopped or coarsely ground hazelnuts (I got coarsely chopped and then blitzed them in the food processor until I was fed up with the noise, if you can get hazelnut flour it's way quieter, and of course you can swap out for some other nut or just leave it out entirely if nuts are a problem)
  • 2 oz of butter (half a stick), chopped into smallish chunks
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon (not sure this is enough, but the overall taste was fine, feel free to apply science to this)
Sift the flour, sugar, and cinnamon together into a bowl, mix in the nuts if you're using them, then dump in the butter chunks and start using your fingertips to rub it in. Like, pick up a chunk of butter and a bit of the dry ingredients, and sort of squeeze them together trying to get each grain of whatever coated in butter. Keep rubbing in until it's feeling like it really ought to all stick together, but it just won't. If you were to add some cold water at this point, it'd be pastry, but you don't want that so don't add water. Instead, get it as together as you can, cover it, and put it in the fridge. Let it sit there for a few hours, this is one of those things where resting is an important step.

When you're ready to bake your crumble, pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, 190 degrees Celsius, Gas mark 5; pull the dishes out of the fridge, collect up and sprinkle the crumbly topping over the fruit, and then just put it in and let it cook for about a half hour. It's ready to come out when it starts getting oozy bubbly fruit around the edges, but do allow a good half hour for it to cool to edible temperatures. You don't want to burn your mouth.

Goes really great with ice cream, or some other kind of cream.