Any Fruit Crumble

I seemed to have bought a self replicating bag of guavas. This is strange, because there appeared to be a finite amount of fruit in the bag when I got it.


Despite this, self replication appears to be the only explanation, because after two weeks of taking guavas to work every day, there's still a whole bunch of guavas stinking up my fridge (the smell of ripe guavas are amazing, but there's something about the smell of *ripening* guavas in large groups that makes my nostrils shudder).



This situation has forced me to make this dessert on a Sunday afternoon, after a huge lunch and pudding, just to get rid of my seemingly endless supply of fruit. I usually make the recipe with an assortment of different seasonal fruit, but this batch only contained guavas (desperate times...).


The recipe is very forgiving in terms of precise measurements. My usual method involves combining twice as much flour as sugar, then crumbing in butter until the mixture clumps when pressed together in my fist (shown in photo at the bottom of the post). However, in the name of science I have provided ingredient quantities here for the specified dish size (and because I had to type up the recipe for a friend!).

Note: I got the baking dish and the ramekin from Le Creuset at one of their Food Bloggers evenings at Silwood Kitchen, gorgeous aren't they? :)


Any Fruit Crumble
Serves 4

• 1 cup flour
  
• 0.5 cup sugar
  
• 0.3(one third) - 0.5 cup butter (depends on how 'cookie-like' you want your crust, I used 0.3 in the photos)
  
• Fruit of your choice to fill a dish with 1.2l capacity (the dish in the photos is 0.6l)
  

1. Preheat the oven to 180'C.
   
2. Cut your fruit into pieces about 2-3cm big. Put them in a shallow baking dish. If the fruit is very tart, sprinkle some sugar on.
   
3. Put the fruit into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. I do this so the fruit has enough time to soften without me worrying that I'm burning the crumble. The initial baking can be omitted.
   
4. Combine the flour and the sugar in a mixing bowl. Rub the butter into the mixture until it resembles fine crumbs.
   
5. Remove the fruit from the oven and sprinkle the mixture over. Be sure to move the fruit around a bit so the crumble can get in between the fruit as well.
   
6. Put the dish back into the oven and bake until the crumble topping is crisp (takes about 20 minutes in my oven). Depending on how impatient I am, I put on the grill as well to finish it quicker, however I do recommend baking it longer rather that shorter as the fruit caramelises and turns nice and gooey the longer you bake it (as long as it doesn't burn!).