This recipe was given to me by a lady who worked with us many years ago and who sadly died of breast cancer. I have never been able to better it, although the very first time I tried it was a slightly dicey experience. The notes said ‘the above quantities are a rough guide’, and someone had crossed out ‘rough guide’ in pencil and written ‘load of rubbish’!
This pud is a crowd pleaser. It’s not smart or elegant, but reliably satisfies and delights everybody, every time.
Variations on the theme
- Some people add ginger
- Others add ginger wine
- Yet others (Gregg Wallace) freeze the rhubarb and have this at Christmas laced with port and stem ginger.
- The Californian chef, Mark Miller, adds anise seeds to the crumble.
- You can experiment with adding roasted hazelnuts to the crumble instead of almonds.
- You can substitute some of the sugar you sprinkle over the rhubarb for Golden Syrup
- Anna Higham, the owner of Quince Bakery, says that wholemeal flour goes particularly well in rhubarb and ginger crumbles
Iris’ always-reliable rhubarb crumble
Serves – 10
Ingredients
- 570g/4½ cups flour
- 250g/8 oz butter
- 335g/1⅔ cups golden caster sugar – ideally vanilla sugar – for the crumble
- 150g/¾ cup golden caster sugar – for the filling
- 170g/2½ cups slivered almonds
- 250 kg/5 lbs rhubarb
- If you don’t have any vanilla sugar, add 1 tsp vanilla paste to the rhubarb
- Double cream or ice cream to serve
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Cut the rhubarb up into bite-size chunks, removing any tough strings as you do so, and put into a large, shallow, ovenproof dish. Sprinkle over the sugar for the filling.
- In a large mixing bowl mix together the crumble ingredients: the flour, the butter, most of the sugar for the crumble, and the slivered almonds. NB: do this by hand, do not be tempted to put this in the blender.
- Top the rhubarb with the crumble. Sprinkle over the remaining sugar – or, if you have it, sprinkle over a couple of tablespoons of demerara sugar which will contribute a fabulous crunch.
- Bake for an hour and a half.
