Cardiff - puddings and pumpkin seeds

So where was I? Ah yes, skipping out of Wahaca in Cardiff last Saturday evening, admiring the pretty lights, replete with tacos and tequila, but not actually full to busting, having decided we didn’t fancy their puds and willing to try our luck elsewhere. 

Obviously the cocktails had gone to our head as we recalled the heady days BC (Before Children) when we lived in a flat in south London and on the rare occasions that we had any money to speak of, we would skip (figuratively of course, for we were young and hip... er actually no, we weren't but we didn't actually skip. It's figurative, OK?) off into the centre of Soho for late night cake, coffee and a walk along the river… 

Eager to repeat the experience, we were sadly brought up short by a distinct lack of comparable establishments in central Cardiff providing what we actually had in mind. The pie shop was closed up too, and most of the other places we found were heaving boozers, music thumping, pavements outside slick with beer (well, Wales had just beaten South Africa) so Carluccios had to do. Oh how times have changed. 

*insert nostalgic sigh for the days when a heaving boozer with beer-slickened pavements and thumping music would have been my idea of a top night out*

The waitress in Carluccios looked at us slightly askance when we declared our desire only for pudding and coffee, but she installed us at a table and produced a couple of the finest espressos I've had recently. There was nearly a major crisis when it transpired that they had (gasp) RUN OUT of lemon tart, but we managed to make do with 2 of their rather delicious chocolate offerings - a warm chocolate pudding for me, baked with ground almonds and served with ice cream, and a rich chocolate torte with raspberry coulis for the  Husband. I also managed a heady Amaretto - I love the stuff but hardly ever drink liqueurs so it was a real treat. I could actually just sit and sniff it and then drink it by dipping my tongue in the glass. But that's not for polite company, so I managed to restrain myself.

Of course, a cracking night out requires a decent breakfast the following morning, and while neither of us felt too shabby, despite tequilas and digestifs, a certain gravitas was required when it came to the contents of breakfast. We were staying on a room only basis in our hotel, so headed out to Bill's to enjoy their breakfasts and their industrial shabby chic restaurant.

I'd never heard of Bill's before and I was a bit disappointed to find out it was part of a chain, because on first glance it didn't feel very chain-like -nestled as it is in a lovely arcade, with a very independent feel too it, even down to the fleece blankets thoughtfully provided for those wishing to enjoy one of the outside tables. Then I spotted the blackboard hanging from the ceiling indicating that it had first started in a greengrocer's in Lewes, which is pretty far from Cardiff, and I was also a bit embarrassed because they seem to be EVERYWHERE. How have I not found out about this before?

Anyway, I can't vouch for the lunches or evening meals, but they do a cracking breakfast at Bill's. I had the eggs royale - smoked salmon and poached eggs on sourdough toast with hollandaise, scattered with pumpkin seeds which was a bit of a surprise addition, but I liked it. The Husband pondered out loud the fact that if he had a big breakfast, he'd feel full and have to moan about it, which lead me to believe he'd go for something else, but in fact he plumped for the full monty - the 'Bill's Breakfast' and enjoyed it hugely. And yes, he did moan about feeling full afterwards, but only in a half-hearted way. Lovely coffee too, although a couple of our drinks orders were missed or arrived very slowly - and in fact the Husband's second Americano just didn't arrive which meant we had to top up on caffeine in Cardiff Bay. But with the sun shining, that was no bad thing...

Apple & Almond Bake

While I don't follow a recipe for crumble topping in terms of the ingredients themselves, I never hold the proportions of flour to sugar to butter in my head. My 'go to' sanity checker (as I may have previously mentioned), is a Delia recipe from her Complete Cookery Course. She recommends flour, sugar and butter - and if you fancy going out on a limb (go on, you know you want to) you could replace some of the flour with oats.

Well, I like to go completely crazy and use ground almonds too, as well as oats, and although I always start off with Delia's proportions, I usually reduce down the sugar especially if I've added sugar to the fruit - which I did on Sunday in fact as I was using up the last of the bullace plums with some more of the apples.

You might say that it's a pointless exercise me even opening the book at all - but I feel like it's become part of the ritual of making crumble, which is after all the pudding I make most often from September to March.

Or it was.

While I was ignoring Delia's crumble instructions in preparation for said crumble last week (it was a very good crumble by the way - a sprinkle of all spice and some brown sugar over the apples & plums - yummers), my eye strayed north on the page to the method of a recipe the ingredients for which are listed on the previous page. Specifically to the phrases "...gently fold in the ground almonds...spread this mixture over the apples...equally good served warm or cold - either way it's nice with some chilled pouring cream"

So yes, you guessed it. Sold to the lady with the insatiable love of all things almond and a bag of windfalls to deal with.

I made this the next day and it is a LOVELY pudding for Autumn or Winter. A bit more faff than a crumble, granted, but the combination of the cooked apples with the almost frangipane topping - well, it's my idea of heaven. 

I expect you'll enjoy it too.

Apple & Almond Bake

4-6 medium/large cooking apples
50g soft brown sugar
110g ground almonds
110g soft, unsalted butter
110g caster sugar
2 large eggs, beaten

You'll also need a baking dish, about 1 litre capacity - butter this.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Peel, core and slice the apples. Put them in a pan with the soft brown sugar and a couple of tablespoons of water and cook down till they are starting to break up and go soft and fluffy - how long this takes will depend on the apples you are using. Keep an eye on them and make sure they don't burn.

When they've reached the required state of fluffiness, spread over the bottom of the buttered dish.

Cream together the butter and caster sugar till pale and fluffy, then add the egg a little at a time, beating after every addition. As with a sponge cake, it pays to go slowly here to stop the mixture curdling. But don't worry too much.

Using a metal spoon, fold in the ground almonds, then spread the mixture over the top of the apples, making sure they are evenly covered.

Pop this in the oven on a high shelf and bake for around an hour till golden on top and cooked.

As St Delia says, equally good served hot or cold, and exceptionally good with some cream...

Raspberry Trifle

Trifle features a lot in people's food memories either positively or negatively. It seems to bring on fairly extreme reactions, a little like tripe or marmite, and I find it odd given that it's a sweet dish, with basically most of the greatest food elements (although granted no bacon) known to woman: cake, a splash of liquor, custard, cream, almonds, jelly or some kind of jamminess, and yes, if you like, some fruit.

My own trifle memories are of the Christmas day variety. Sherry trifle was always on the table, my Granny's contribution (if my memory serves me well) to the festivities whether she was running the main event or she brought it over to ours. There was, I seem to remember, a kind of illicit thrill to the consumption of something with alcohol in it, a hesitance on my parents' part to allow me to have too much.

I've steered away from trifle myself, not from any dislike, but perhaps a reluctance to try and replicate that which is an integral part of my memory when the originator of said trifle is no longer here to pester for the exact contents. Much as I enjoyed it, I can't actually remember what went into Granny's trifle, excepts for a whipped cream layer sprinkled with flaked almonds. Flaked almonds are one of my most favourite things in the world - anything almondy really ( my love of marzipan is well documented on these virtual pages).

I've availed myself of Nigella's deconstructed lemon trifle from Domestic Goddess a couple of times - essentially a very drizzled lemon loaf cake which you slice onto a plate and smother in a lemon syllabub type thing and raspberries. It's very good, but not really trifle.

Anyway, as I was explaining the other day, we had some of the Husband's colleagues over for a BBQ - the weather gods smiled on us as did the BBQ gods, and all was right with the world. I'd dug out some Good Food mags for pudding inspiration and when Blue saw this recipe, there was little chance I was going to be able to make anything else. He begged, he pleaded, he sustained the campaign for several days. He won.

I made the original recipe first time round, making double the custard and using that to sandwich together a Swedish Summer Cake (also a Nigella). As an aside, I made the Summer Cake before, following her recipe for custard (it's in Kitchen - it's worth buying the book for that recipe alone), but found the custard very runny - pornographically so. This custard is a thicker affair, and worked well. Also, I wimped out and only sliced the cake into 2 layers, not 3, but I was well pleased with the results.

But back to trifle. So I made the cherry trifle, and very easy and satisfactory it was too, but I wanted to see what it would be like with raspberries (need you ask?). Raspberries are one of my favourites - they are also Pink's favourites, and after indulging the boy's cherry dreams, I thought I'd suck up to her a bit.

Yes, I made the madeira cake, and yes, you make the custard - you could buy both, even Mary Berry in the original recipe countenances the possibility - but actually, I'm finding less and less time to tinker in the kitchen, and this was a welcome excuse to shut myself away, fiddle about, make a mess and create something lovely. And that is as good a reason as any to make this.

And just one point about the custard. I'm all for skin on custard, but not here when you want to pour it over the trifle later. I will argue the toss with you.

Raspberry Trifle

50g caster sugar
50g cornflour
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs plus 1 yolk
400ml full fat milk
200ml double cream

450g raspberries
340g raspberry jam - as good quality as you can afford
450g Madeira cake - you can buy this, or make your own - I used Nigella's fantastic recipe from Domestic Goddess which will make more than you need, but that's no hardship.
100ml raspberry liqueur - chambord or the like, or use some decent dry sherry
5 large amaretti biscuits
300ml lightly whipped double cream

Make the custard first. Combine sugar, cornflour and vanilla in a mixing bowl, then add the eggs & yolk and whisk together till smooth. This is important - get the lumps out of the way at this stage.

Pour the milk and cream into a large pan (large enough to take everything in it) and gently heat - but don't let it boil.

When the liquid is hot, pour over the eggy mixture and whisk vigorously till all combined, then rinse out the pan to remove any scum.

Put the pan back on a gentle heat and pour the custard back in, then stirring continuously, bring back up to heat until the custard has thickened and is smooth. If the custard looks like it's going lumpy at ay stage during the heating process, just keep stirring - it should smooth out again.

Pour the custard into a jug and put a piece of clingfilm pressed onto the top of the custard to stop skin forming while it cools down.

Put about 400g of the raspberries into a small pan with half the jam and gently heat up till everything softens and melds together. Stir occasionally just to make sure it doesn't stick and burn - do keep the heat low. After about 10 mins remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.

Slice your madeira cake up into 1cm slices, and sandwich the slices together with the rest of the jam - we're talking generous smothering here.

Lay these sandwiches into the bottom of your trifle dish (this recipe calls for one around 20cm in diameter and quite deep), then splash the alcohol over, ensuring all is covered.

Pour and smooth the raspberry jam sauce over the cake, then break the amaretti biscuits over the top in quite big pieces.

Smooth the cooled custard over this, then lightly whip the cream and spread over the custard, Decorate with the reserved raspberries  you could also sprinkle some chopped/flaked almonds over the top too...

Beating the scales - or not. And a Lemon Tart that didn't work out quite how I planned

No I don't mean beating the scales in the weight loss sense, I mean that little game we all play trying to work out exactly where to cut the butter to give the weight that's specified in the recipe? You know what I mean, don't be coy. I bet you're really good at it.

Oh. You don't? So it's just me? It is? Oh dear.
 

 Well, it's out there now, so best get on with the confession.

It started with those butter packs that have 'approximate' 50g sections marked out on the edge of the butter paper. I'd cut as straight and as accurately as I could to see if I could indeed cut 50g. Then I started doing it by eye. And not just 50g, but 100g. Or 75g. How about 40g...

I realise that this says alot more about me than I'd like, but to be fair, this doesn't extend to weighing out anything else. I still wouldn't have a clue how much 50 or 100g of sugar or flour would look like. Well - I suppose I would a little bit, but not with the confidence that I like to think I have to cut butter up into appropriate portions. 

I would never try to beat the scales when it came to weighing out, say, blackcurrants, and, without scales, or the handy measuring mug I have from Love Food Hate Waste, I always cook too much rice. So it's not an all-pervading affliction.

I don't think I've ever been absolutely spot on with the butter, doing it by eye, but I'm getting better, and sometimes I can be just a gram or 2 out.

The days just fly by, I tell you.

So when I set to, the other afternoon, to make a lemon tart for some friends who were coming for dinner that evening, I needed to weigh out 140g of butter. The excitement! There's so much more skill required when you're not aiming for multiples of 50g.

From my 250g pack of butter, it didn't take a genius to work out (as I did) that I needed to cut a bit beyond half. I eyed up the block, made a mark, then cut. I was reasonably confident, but the scales - my new, stripy for Christmas, scales, said no. 97g.

97g??? Was the Co-Op cheating me? I'd definitely cut more than half a block of butter that professed to be 250g. I looked again. Then I weighed another block of butter I had in the fridge which was also supposed to be 250g, from the same store. 192g.

Before I stomped up the road, receipt in hand, outrage on my lips, to accuse the Co-Op of swindling its customers out of butter, I decided I'd better weigh something else. I got out a full pack of paella rice. Different product, different supermarket 'own brand'. 500g on the packet, 177g on the scales. Or 233g depending on which way up I put the box on the scales. Yeah. Not good.

I'd put a new battery in the scales already, so it appears that I had a calibration issue.

Not just a calibration issue, but a problem with my dessert.

I'd already had an issue with the pastry case - I bought the pastry, and committed the fundamental error of using the left over to make jam tarts BEFORE the 'baked blind' case had come out of the oven shrunken and wonky in parts, so I had nothing to patch it with. 

I was working on a recipe I haven't used before, which is never a good thing with a couple of hours before your guests are due. And as if that wasn't enough, I'd already weighed out the sugar, believing in my scales, before my trust was destroyed with the butter. Not only that, but I'd grated the lemon zest into the sugar as required, leaving me with the options of (1) picking out all the bits of lemon zest before working out how to re-weigh some more sugar, (2) going to the Co-Op (I still wasn't utterly convinced) to get more lemons, or (3) winging it.

Unlike the week before, I didn't have the necessary to knock up an alternative. Visions of lumpy, lemon-flavoured scrambled eggs leaking all over the oven from my patchy pastry case filled my head.  

But, you know, life is too short to pick the grated zest of 3 lemons out of a bowl of caster sugar that might or might not have weighed 225g, and it felt ridiculous to just start again, so I decided that the sugar would have to be the right weight, added butter that looked to me as if it was around 140g, did what I needed with the eggs (no weighing required, thankfully), and held my breath.

Well, you'll be relieved to know that all was pretty much well that ended well - or that ended in a few glasses of wine with some lovely friends who I am going to miss so much when we move. They were very kind about the tart, and, wonky pastry case and guesstimated ingredients aside, it tasted pretty good. Lemon tart is pretty much one of my most favourite things to eat, and for all that every stage was tinged with disaster (even the actual baking - which despite my vigilance ended up with it catching slightly on the top) this particular specimen was, in my humble opinion, definitely in the general lemon tart ball park, if not exactly right between the goal posts.

What? You want the recipe now? Well, I feel that I owe it to you all to make it again and check it works using the measurements I was supposed to be using. Because I know I'm a bit "some of this and some of that" but I really can't guarantee how much sugar and butter I actually used. And as there's always going to be room for another post about lemon tart on this blog, you'll just have to wait till I get this one right...

Winning the leftovers lottery - Caramel Apple Tart

Leftovers.

Either as a repeat of the previous meal (I'd go so far as to suggest that the whole Christmas turkey shebang is much tastier cold the next day -apart from the roasties, which need to be sliced up and fried) , or providing components for the next day's dinner - left over roast meat in a stir fry or risotto, left over veg chopped up as bubble & squeak etc, every fridge should have some leftovers in it.

I hit the leftover jackpot today, with the werewithal to make a mighty fine pudding.

Enough leftover sweet shortcrust pastry from a luscious lemon tart that I made yesterday, and half a tin of caramel leftover from making a batch of flapjack. And apples - still, apples everywhere. I have an idea that this might have started life as a Jamie Oliver confection, but regardless of its provenance, this is a pretty flexible dessert that you could probably adapt, and would certainly double up in size if you had more of the necessary left over, or even if you decided to make it in its own right, without waiting to have the required leftovers...

  Caramel Apple Tart

Enough sweet shortcrust pastry to line an 18cm tart tin
200g tinned caramel
1 large cooking apple
a dessert spoon of icing sugar

Pre-heat the oven to 180C.

Butter and flour the tart tin, then line with the pastry. Use a fork to prick the pastry all over, and then line with greaseproof paper, tip in baking beans and bake blind in the oven for 15-20 minutes. Remove the greaseproof paper and baking beans and return the case to the oven for another 5-10 minutes till the pastry is golden and biscuity. Set aside to cool a little.

Spread the caramel over the base of the tart, then peel, core and slice the apple into fairly thin slices, and arrange over the top of the caramel. Sieve the icing sugar evenly over the apple slices, and then bake for 30-40 minutes till the apple is cooked turning golden, and the caramel is bubbling. Leave to cool a little before serving. 

It was very tasty with some left over soured cream... 

I'm linking up my leftovers pudding to this month's Credit Crunch Munch run by Helen on Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla at Fab Food for All hosted in October by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy

Tasty tomatoes, and utterly scrumptious Butterscotch Apple Pudding

I keep getting side tracked by cake and pudding. Brownie eclipsed the healthy bean and chorizo salad that the kids enjoyed last week, and tonight, instead of getting excited about some rather tasty stuffed beef tomatoes, what I really want to talk about is pudding. But I will talk tomatoes, because this year, for the first time in AGES, we have had lots of lovely red tomatoes with more still coming. So you 'll just have to wait for pudding - or scroll down to the bottom of this post.

In fact the last time we produced this many tomatoes was when Blue was in his first year of chemo in 2006. He craved cherry tomatoes during the courses of steroids he had to take, and consumed kilos of them - quite literally. The Husband proudly grew tomatoes, they ripened, and guess what. The craving stopped. I think Blue moved on to raw mushrooms and Shreddies at that point. We've grown tomatoes ever since, but never with the same success, and green tomato chutney has been a big feature of our lives. This year, though, it will be different. The tomatoes have ripened, and they have been delicious.





Today, some particularly fine specimens - beef tomatoes - were on the menu, along with some baby courgettes ('pick 'em while they're small', is my current strategy for dealing with them). I hadn't really thought about what I was going to stuff them with, but I found some pork mince in the freezer, and some giant couscous in the cupboard.

I'd like to be able to give you the full recipe, but I got distracted by the pudding, so didn't weigh out everything - or keep a note of what I did weigh. Essentially, I cut out the tops of 4 beef tomatoes and scooped our the flesh and seeds into a bowl. I heated a splash of olive oil into a frying pan, and fried 100g giant couscous for a couple of minutes before adding what from memory (when I put it into the freezer) was 250g pork mince. I browned off the mince, and added 2 baby courgettes which I'd chopped quite small, plus a chopped clove of elephant garlic, 1/2 tsp of ground coriander and a tsp of smoked paprika.

While this was all cooking, I seived out as much juice as I could and added it into the pan, bringing it to a simmer to cook the couscous. After about 15 minutes, I filled the tomatoes with this mixture, arranged the leftover mixture around the tomatoes, then covered the dish with silver foil and baked it for 25 minutes. It could have done with being spicier, but it was pretty good and the Husband and Blue (and I) all enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I started this all too late, so Pink had to make do with pasta before she went to Brownies.

You'll be please to know, though, that Pink didn't miss out on pudding. What could have been so delicious? Well, I'll tell you - Rachel Allen's Butterscotch Apple Pudding, for which I will be eternally grateful to the lovely Annie who writes Scrummy Suppers and Quirky Cakes. As I mentioned before, as well as tomatoes, we also have an abundance of cooking apples at the moment, and this was quick to knock up and totally delicious. If I had one criticism, it would be that it could possibly have done with a little more of the butterscotch sauce - easily rectified by making more next time...

Butterscotch Apple Pudding  

100 g butter

125 g self-raising flour  
200 g light brown muscovado sugar
pinch of salt 
1 tsp vanilla extract 
1 egg
200 ml milk
3 cooking apples, (about 500g total weight)
1 tbsp golden syrup & 1 tbsp of runny honey

Pre-heat the oven to 180C

Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl with 100g of the sugar.  

In a jug, mix together the milk, egg and vanilla extract with the melted butter.

Peel, quarter and core the apples, then slice each quarter again lengthwise and then into half. You basically want large but still bitesize chunks.  Sprinkle these over the bottom of an oven proof dish - Rachel's was 20 by 30 cm. Mine was probably 22cm square-ish

Tip the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk quickly together - as you would for muffins. Tip over the apple pieces. and spread evenly over the dish.

Make the butterscotch - in a small pan, put the syrup & honey with the remaining 100g of sugar and 150ml of boiling water. Heat, stirring, while the sugar dissolves, then pour as evenly as you can over the batter and apples.

Pop in the oven for around 30 minutes. If you can resist, leave it cool a little before serving warm. It would probably be delicious with ice cream, cream or creme fraiche, but frankly it didn't need it.

Stripy Meringues - my BakingMad favourite summer dessert

What’s your favourite summer dessert?

That's the question BakingMad asked me recently, and invited me to write a post about it. 

BakingMad.com have loads of ideas for summer recipes, from cupcakes to take on a picnic, to luxurious cheesecake. Check out the website for more inspiration.

I tend to ignore dessert in the summer – not that we don’t have 'pudding', but there’s so much fantastic fruit around that it’s easy to just bring out a plate of strawberries & raspberries without further embellishment.

If pushed, well, Summer Pudding has to rank as one of the best puddings ever, and is certainly the Husband's all out fave, but it's not quite the right time for that yet. The currants in the garden are still green.

On the other hand, there are Hampshire strawberries around. Strawberries apparently go with black pepper, with balsamic vinegar, with a whole host of things. Call me traditional, though, but I like them with cream. And meringues.

I know a lot of people get the fear from meringue. 

I don't want to sound smug, but making meringue doesn't phase me. My mum always had a tin of meringues in the cupboard, and it's never given me much of a problem. On the other hand, chewy and delicious as I like it, my meringue never looks particularly beautiful. If it's for a pavlova, well, cracks are part of the charm, and anyway it'll all be covered in cream and fruit anyway. Individual meringues, well, again, if they are a complete disaster, you can break them up for an Eton mess kind of thing. More cream and fruit. Believe me, no one's going to complain.

So to make this a little more of a challenge, I decided to embrace something that does give me the fear - piping. For too long, I have looked at photos of beautifully piped cupcakes, cakes, petit fours on OPB (Other People's Blogs), and known with certainty that in my hands, a piping bag could only lead to one thing:  complete and utter disaster. You only have to look at the mess I made of my hot cross buns, cutting the corner off a freezer bag...

BakingMad sent me a variety of cake decorating paraphenalia, including some Silver Spoon food colouring, and a booklet which included a picture of beautifully striped meringues, and something clicked in my head.  "I'm going to have a go at that" I thought. "I'm going to get me some striped meringue" (in my best Southern drawl).

Cue a trip to Hobbycraft and confusion in the cake icing aisle, while Pink roamed the store unchecked, looking for things to spend money on. We exited with some disposable piping bags, 2 nozzles and a 'coupler'. Plus some face paints and a bag of fizzy sweets.

Anyway, back to the meringues. This is my basic recipe, which you can increase or reduce as you like. As I use my trusty Kenwood to make the meringue mix, I'd never make less than 2 egg whites' worth.

4 egg whites

pinch of salt

225g caster sugar

1 tsp cornflower (to make chewy meringue)

Whisk the egg white with the salt till stiff but still wet.  Add a couple of tablespoons of the sugar, whisk in, then sprinkle on the cornflour and carry on whisking, slowly pouring in the rest of the sugar, till the meringue is looking shiny, and you get stiff peaks.

At this point, you can then make a large meringue for pavlova, or spoon dollops on to baking paper lined baking sheets, and bake the meringues for 1-2 hrs till dry and lift from the paper. Alternatively, just turn off the oven and leave while the oven cools down (just don't forget to take then out before you turn the oven on again).

So if you're not going to dollop with a spoon, you could use a piping bag and pipe out the meringue. And you could colour the mix, to make coloured meringue, or simply (Ha!) paint a line of food colour up your piping bag and Bob (or striped meringue) would be your Uncle. 

Well, call it a fluke, but it really worked. I made up my meringue, and took it slowly. I used gel colour for the stripey meringues, and used the Silver Spoon food colourings to make the pink and green meringues. For the stripes, you literally use a brush or a cocktail stick and paint a line of colour up the inside of the piping bag, then spoon in your mixture for piping, and pipe away.

The actual piping itself left something to be desired, certainly I didn't get it right every time, Pink had a go with a few of them, and there's no way I could offer you my 'top tips' for piping meringue, because there's a whole host of talented meringue-pipers out there in internet-land, and I am not about to try and compete - but I managed to get enough of them looking pretty good.

So there you have it. Our favourite summer dessert. Strawberries (& raspberries) with stripy meringue. And cream.

Rhubarb Amaretti Crunch

I may have mentioned before that a glut of rhubarb is never something I consider to be a problem.

I love the stuff and the kids do too.

I was in 'empty the fridge' mode this evening, and trying to cook a reasonably special tea for Blue who for once got me all to himself after school.

Half empty pots of soured cream and 0% fat Greek yoghurt, some amaretti biscuits, and rhubarb in the garden. Pudding!

This is barely a recipe, and while I was conscious that I was going to blog it, I didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the quantities I was using. But it doesn't matter, because this is absolutely the type of thing that you can muck about with. No amaretti biscuits - use ginger biscuits. I expect Hobnobs would be OK too, although either almonds or ginger do go particularly well with rhubarb, so bear that in mind when choosing your crunch element. As for the dairy product - you could use whipped double cream, natural yoghurt... You could even change the rhubarb for something entirely different. Although, then, it wouldn't be Rhubarb Amaretti Crunch...


Rhubarb Amaretti Crunch

Serves 2

170g rhubarb
1tbsp soft brown sugar
juice of half an orange
2 generous tbsp sour cream
2 generous tbsp 0% fat Greek yoghurt
amaretti biscuits

First, trim the rhubarb and slice into small pieces. Add to a pan with the sugar and orange juice and gently cook till soft, then set aside. 

Mix together the sour cream and the yoghurt.

Divide the cooked rhubarb between 2 glasses, and carefully spoon some of the cream/yoghurt mix on top. Crumble some amarettis on top then repeat till all is used up, or the glasses are full.

Serve, with extra amaretti biscuits if you have some.