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Rhubarb And Red Berry Crumbles

Rhubarb & Red Berry Crumbles


I get giddy pretty often. I can’t help it. It’s my self defense mechanism against discontent, routine, hardship. My heart does a happy dance reading a friend’s book feeling so proud of her as I realize the depths of her talent. My toes start moving in my shoes while listening to a perfect piece of music. I get giddy pulling out a perfectly moist and tender gluten free banana bread out of the oven. The little things deserve inner celebrating. I get giddy.

This week it was finding rhubarb for the first time this year. Yes, I know. I am easy. Making Rhubarb and Red Berry Crumbles was even easier.

Rhubarb & Red Berry Crumbles


It’s a bit early still to have outdoor cultivated rhubarb over here (April/May) and I knew by the intense red color that this one was hothouse rhubarb (grown in heated greenhouses). I also knew it would be sweeter than its outdoor sister which was perfect on so many levels mixed in with berries in a crumble. B. wondered if he would have to drown his crumble under a mound of vanilla ice cream to offset all that tartness. Nope.

As I was mixing the crumble topping, I started going over my reasonning with him and that’s when my husband looked at me as if I were the biggest baking geek out there. This type of rhubarb would be tart enough to make you notice it but would round the tartness of the raspberries while boosting up the flavor of the blueberries. Add a gluten free crumble topping with a pinch of cardamom and you have the perfect dessert to brighten any day.

Rhubarb & Red Berry Crumbles


Come to think of it we are big geeks. We start on a topic and bounce off ideas, questions and solutions all the time. Can be his trombone playing, my baking, writing, photography, vintage car fixing, the moon, the stars and everything in between. Absolute fun but it drives my parents insane when they come visit as they are trying to keep up.

Speaking of which…I know I will be making these crumbles again very soon when my parents come to visit. They will be here in just three weeks! They arrive 2 days after my return from teaching baking and photography workshops in Los Angeles and Seattle. Talk about timing! No time to noodle around to get the house ready and the fridge full! It’s been over a year since they have come to visit. Oh! I just can’t wait!

Rhubarb & Red Berry Crumbles


My mom loves stewed fruits of any kind. That’s the fate we usually reserve for over ripe fruits back home. Growing up it was my breakfast and dessert of choice: stewed fruits over her homemade yogurt and a sprinkle of muesli for crunch. I guess that’s why I love crumbles so much. Similar in texture, contrasting soft fruits and crunchy topping. Yet a tad more decadent with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. One night I even got fancy and candied some rhubarb peel on top. Inner happy dance…

One more thing: my friend Valentina who is an insanely talented photographer is teaching young kids the art of photography but the school needs a little help either in the form of used cameras or donations to purchase cards. It would only take 150 of us giving $10 each to help them meet their goal. That’s not much. I love the idea of teaching children such crafts and arts at an early age. They can learn so much more than just how to take a picture: architecture, technology, discipline, community, etc… Click here for more information on how to help.

Rhubarb & Red Berry Crumbles



Rhubarb and Red Berry Crumbles:

Serves 6-8

Notes: I start by preparing the crumble first so I can freeze it while I prepare the fruit and preheat the oven. This way, I can easily grate it over the ramekins or baking dish before baking and not get it too soft in between my fingers as I top the fruits with it. If you tolerate gluten, replace all the gf flours with 1.5 cups of all purpose or soft whole wheat flour.

For the topping:
3/4 cup (90gr) millet flour
3/4 cup (120gr) brown rice flour
1/2 cup (65gr) tapioca starch
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
pinch of salt
1 stick (115gr) unsalted butter, cold, in small pieces
1/4 cup (80gr) honey

For the fruits:
3 cups (365gr) rhubarb, fresh or frozen
1 cup (125gr) raspberries, fresh or frozen
1 cup blueberries (150gr) fresh or frozen
2 tablespoons (16gr) cornstarch
juice and zest of half a lemon
2 tablespoons (40gr) honey

Prepare the crumble topping:
In a large bowl, stir together all the flours, cardamom and pinch of salt. Add the butter and honey and start mixing everything together with your fingertips. You want to form a few large clusters of dough. It will be easier to grate once cold. Freeze the mixture while you prepare the fruits.

Preheat the oven at 350F and position a rack in the middle.

Prepare the fruits:
If you are using fresh rhubarb, peel it first then cut it in small pieces (about one inch). Use frozen as it is.
In a large bowl, mix together the rhubarb and berries along with the cornstarch, lemon juice and zest and honey. Stir the whole mix delicately as not to break the raspberries too much. Divide the mixture into lightly buttered ramekins or one 13×9-inch baking pan.

Assemble:
Grate the cold crumble mixture right over the fruits with either a cheese grater or a microplane with large holes.
Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the fruits start to bubble and the topping is golden brown. Handle with care – bubbling juices are very sneaky!

If you desire to candy and twirl some rhubarb strips, it’s pretty easy actually:
Start by heating on the stove on medium high, equal parts sugar and water until the sugar dissolves (simple syrup.
Preheat the oven at 200F.
With a vegetable peeler remove long strips from the rhubarb stem. Dip them in the simple syrup and lay them flat on a baking sheet lined with either parchment paper or a silicone mat and let dry in the oven for about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and quickly twirl the rhubarb strips around wooden spoons, skewers, etc..let cool completely.

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Le P’tit Coin Francais:

Crumble Rhubarbe Et Fruits Rouges:

Pour 6 a 8 personnes

Notes: je prepare le crumble avant les fruits car je le mets au congelateur pour pouvoir le gratter a meme les ramekins avant la cuisson. Une gratte a fromage ou une "microplane" a grands trous suffisent. Si vous ne desirez pas utiliser de farines sans gluten, remplacer les par 190gr de farine normale.

Pour le crumble:
90gr farine de millet
120gr farine de riz brun
65gr farine de tapioca
une pincee de cardamome
pincee de sel
115gr beurre non sale, froid, coupe en petits morceaux
80gr de miel

Pour les fruits:
365gr rhubarbe, fraiche our surgelee
125gr framboises, fraiches ou surgelees
150gr myrtilles, fraiches ou surgelles
16gr maizena
jus et zeste d’un demi citron
40gr miel

Prepare le crumble:
Dans un grand bol, melangez les farines, cardamome et le sel. Ajoutez le beurre en des et le miel et melanger le tout du bout des doigts. Formez de larges boules de pate et mettez les au congelateur pendant que vous preparez les fruits.

Prechauffer le four a 180C et positionnez une grille au milieu.

Pour les fruits:
Si vous utilisez de la rhubarbe fraiche, epluchez-la d’abord et coupez la ensuite en petits morceaux.
dans un grand bol, melangez la rhubarbe et les fruits rouges. Ajoutez la maizena, le zeste et jus de citron et le miel. Melangez doucement pour ne pas casser les framboises. Repartissez les fruits dans des ramequins legerement beurres ou dans un plat rectangular de taille moyenne.

Assembler:
Sortez le crumble du congelateur et grattez le au dessus des fruits pour bien les recouvrir. Cuire le tout 20 a 30 minutes ou jusq’a ce que le crumble soit d’une belle couleur doree.

Pour les accordeons de rhubarbe: faites un sirop simple en diluant la meme quantite d’eau et de sucre a feu moyen. Trempez dedans de longue bandes d’epluchures de rhubarbe et les mettres sur une plaque recouverte d’une feuille de papier sulfurise ou de silicone. Faire secher a feu tres doux pendant une heure. A la sortie du four, les tortilloner autour de cuillieres en bois ou autre les laissez refroidir completement.

Spiced Quince Crumbles

Quince Crumble


If you were to come visit South Carolina right now, you’d be hard pressed to find any sign that it is indeed Fall. For us, an extra packed schedule and an ever growing temptation for candy corn let us know tis the season. The leaves are still green, the sun is still out and the heat and humidity are still very much present. So what is a gal to do when she is season deprived? Get in the kitchen and bake something Fall-ish like these Spiced Quince Crumbles while listening to comforting favorites.

Nothing screams Fall louder to me than the smell of quince simmering on the stove with a handful of my favorite spices. My mom used to make quince jelly every year and the process usually took a couple of days between the peeling, slicing, slow cooking, straining and canning. Every year, I looked forward to these days like a famished wolf. There would be jelly sweet as honey for our morning toasts and quince compote left over from the straining for our after school tartine.

Quinces are no locally grown here so they tend to be pricey and since we are watching our budget, they are more of an occasional luxury, and I treat them as such. Nothing gets wasted not even the seeds. Once peeled I use the skin to flavor tagines and oriental stews. The seeds are very high in pectin so I wrap them in cheesecloth and use them for pate de fruits or other jams. The soft flesh is most often stewed until tender and parked in the refrigerator for tarts or crumbles just like this one.

Spiced Poached Quince


I love that I can find them around here as soon as October rolls around even though no one at the store really knows what they are and how to prepare them. If you live in my town and they was a lady holding up the cashier’s line for a code check, might have been me and my two quinces!

There are no good words to explain quinces properly. They are a bit of this and a bit of that but also neither this nor that. Whatever you do with them, just do not eat them raw. You can always check Google and Wikipedia or trust me that they are too good not to bake with.

We’ve had a pretty packed weekend of photographing weddings and my brain is getting fried by the minute planning a job this week, working with this amazing photographer (I style, he shoots). So when we plopped on the couch last night and put our feet up with a couple of these crumbles, all seemed right and quiet with the world. At least during those ten minutes of eating them…

Quince Crumble


These gluten free crumbles start with softly poached quinces in plenty of spices reminiscent of Fall like cinnamon, star anise, cardamom, cloves. Here I used a mix of flours for the topping with some chopped hazelnuts, but you could substitute the same amount in all purpose flour if you wish.

Fall is here. At least through cooking and baking!

Quince Crumble


Spiced Quince Crumbles:

Serves 4

For the poached quinces:
2 quinces, peeled, cored and quartered
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 cardamom pods, slightly crushed
5 cloves
1/4 cup (50gr) sugar
1 teaspoon allspice berries
1/2 lemon

For the crumble:
1/4 cup (40gr) brown rice flour
1/4 cup (40gr) sorghum flour
1/4 cup (30gr) tapioca flour
OR 3/4 cup (95gr) all purpose flour instead if not baking gluten free
3 tablespoons (15gr)finely chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup (55gr) packed light brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream

Prepare the quinces:
Place all the ingredients in a large saucepan and add enough water to cover the quinces. Bring the content of the pot to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low, place a lid halfway over the pot and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the quinces are soft when you poke a knife through them. Remove the fruit from the liquid with a slotted spoon and let cool to room temperature. Thinly slice the quince and reserve.

Butter the inside of four 1 cup capacity ramekins or small dishes and set them on a baking tray. Preheat the oven to 350F and position a rack in the center.

Prepare the crumble:
Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix with your fingertips or a fork until the mixture resembles large beads.

Divide the quince slices evenly among your prepared dishes and sprinkle the crumble as evenly on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

You might have leftover crumble mixture, you can either bake it separately and crumble it up over ice cream later or freeze it for up to three months for a quick crumble later.

Roasted Caramel Figs, Berry and Apple Compote Verrines

Roasted Figs, Berries and Apple Verrines


When I visited Lisa last year in October, I kept marveling at the coming of Fall, the changing nature of the landscape and the foliage. Those deep reds, perfect greens and deliciously rich golds…they were making me happy and dreamy. She got quite amused by my attitude toward something so natural as Fall and asked what on earth was going on deep in the South for me to act as if I had not seen Fall in ages? Didn’t leaves change colors down there? She was stumped when I told her that they turned from green to brown. No luscious displays of colors, just brown…and if we were lucky a little beige-orange. Nothing like the landscape that was unfolding in front of my eyes as we were driving along.

It becomes difficult to start cooking with pumpkins, pears and apples when you are still wearing shorts and tee-shirts in the middle of November. Granted the evenings are chilly but nothing that a light cardigan can’t fix. Stores and floral shops do their best to put us in the mood by displaying the right colors and adding sweaters and buckled shoes into their window displays but food…I have to close my eyes and pretend I am experiencing Fall in my kitchen. As much as I dislike the heat and humidity of our summer I do realize how lucky we are to be grilling out late in the year without a coat on and not shoveling snow in February. So, yes I am torn…I relinquish saying goodbye to the bounty of summer fruits but I am also eager to cook with more seasonal ones when we can’t quite experience Fall like others up north.

To celebrate the arrival of mellower days, I decided to make a "transition dessert" including berries, figs and apples. When I was a little girl growing in Apt, Provence, we used to have a small fig tree next to the driveway and I remember coming home from school in late September, early October and picking up the fruits as soon as I would hop out of the car. Summer was picking up cherries from our giant tree and as soon as school would start it was figs and juicy apples from the next door neighbor. The seasons were milder there too but you could clearly feel the changes in the air. Although I grew up eating figs, we rarely cooked with them, that came later when I truly appreciated the virtues of a good fig puree, enhanced by a little caramel.

The other day I was on the phone with my mother and we started to reminisce about grandma and her cooked fruits, her compotes rather. She made the best apple one and her cooked berries were always one of our requests for breakfast. I hung up with mom and told myself that it was exactly what I was going to do and layer them in a "verrine" and serve them with some cookies. The weather was clement, there was even a light chill that morning so the cookies turned into a crumble and the figs got mixed with the berries….What is Fall without a little crumble on top?!! A few spoonful of it the other night and we almost wanted to build up a fire!!

Roasted Figs, Berries and Apple Verrines


The verrine did not start that way actually. I had a small basket of figs that I needed to use rather fast and decided to dip them into caramel before roasting them briefly in the oven. We enjoyed some hot or warm on a few scoops of vanilla ice cream and I was left with just enough to add them to something else. I put that thought away and moved on to other things….not for long though! It is preferable to serve this warm or room temperature, thus it is better to start by making the crumble part, so once you have all the other elements ready, all you have to do is layer them in glasses. Before you think there are too many elements to make this an easy desserts, let me tell you that you can prepare everything over a couple of days. Make the compotes ahead of time (freeze them if you want), then reheat them just before serving. The crumble can be kept in an airtight container for up to 4 days (can be frozen also), and just pop it in the microwave or the oven before serving.

Roasted Caramel Figs, Berries and Apple Compotes Verrines:

Serves 6

For the crumble:
1 cup (140 gr) all purpose flour
1/2 cup (100 gr) light packed brown sugar
1 stick (113 gr) butter, softened

In a medium bowl, combine with your fingertips or a pastry blender the flour, sugar and butter and form large clumps of dough. Lay them on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350F until golden brown. Let cool to room temperature before breaking the clumps into smaller crumbs.

For the caramel figs:
3 Tb ( 42 gr) butter
1/4 cup (50gr) packed light brown sugar
6 fresh figs, halved.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the half figs on it, set aside.
Preheat the oven to 375F.
In a medium saucepan, combine the butter and brown sugar and cook them over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the butter is melted (2-3 minutes). Remove from the heat.
With a spoon, divide the caramel over the figs and roast them in the oven for about 3 to 5 mintues or tunil they become tender and wrinkly. Set aside to cool and puree them in a food processor, set aside.

For the berry compote:
1/2 cup (120gr) raspberries
1/2 cup (120gr) strawberries
1/4 cup sugar (62 gr) sugar
zest and juice of one lemon

Combine all the ingredients in a heave saucepan over medium heat and cook for about 5 minutes or until the fruits start to release their juice and become soft. Let cool.
Add this compote to the caramel fig puree. Set aside.

For the apple compote:
4 large apples (your preference) peeled, cored and diced
1/4 cup (50gr) packed light brown sugar
2 Tb water
1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until the apples become soft and almost mushy. Remove from the heat and let cool.

To assemble: layer the berry-fig compote at the bottom of 6 glasses, top with a layer of apple compote and top with the crumble. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Roasted Figs, Berries and Apple Verrines

Nectarine and Banana Crumble

You know that Georgia Peach Ice Cream I was tempting you with the other day?….Well, it goes really well with a warm nectarine and banana crumble! Sounds like an awkward combination but I am telling you, it works! I have to add that we have eaten this with pretty much any kind of ice cream, from peach, banana, vanilla to chocolate and my favorite was salted butter caramel, but that will be for another post…if I can save enough for a picture!

I know a crumble is not a typical summer dessert but my friends in the Southern hemisphere might appreciate a little comfort food. The rest of us can have a perfect excuse to dish out more ice cream just to cool things off!
The beauty of a crumble or a crisp is that you can change and substitute the fruits at will, and play with the topping ingredients. I chose walnuts in the streusel topping, but I also think that coconut or almonds would work quite well.

Nectarine and Banana Crumble:

Serves 4

Filling:
4 nectarines, pitted and cut into small pieces
2 bananas, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup sugar
zest of one lemon
2 Tb lemon juice
2 Tb cornstarch

Streusel topping:
1 stick butter, cold
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

For the filling: in a large mixing bowl, combine the fruits and the rest of the ingredients. Toss well, but gently not to break the bananas too much.
Divide between 4 ramequins, place the ramequins on a baking sheet as the fruits are most likely to release their juice, causing a spill. Set them aside while your prepare the topping.

For the topping: In a bowl, combine the flour, sugar, walnuts, add the butter cut in small pieces and mix with your fingertips until you get coarse crumbs.
Divide evenly among the 4 dishes.
Bake at 350 until for 20-30 minutes.

Update: It looks like the good folks of Blogger have named me "Blog Of Note". I am sincerely touched and for all new readers, well, I hope you hang around a little and get your virtual fill of sweets and sugar! Thanks for visiting!