One of the beauties of blogging is that it’s a great online journal.
From time to time a particular post, or series of posts, from the past, pop up and remind me of great memories.
Just such a post popped up today on one of my social media accounts.
2 years ago to the day I was competing to be crowned Top Chef by Grana Padano.
I didn’t win, but I did take home a huge chunk of Grana Padano!
(Photo courtesy of Grana Padano – my fellow competitors, and I, with Francesco Mazzei)
From taking part in the competition I also discovered that Italian hard cheese makes a great additional ingredient to a crumble topping.
And as we are heading toward the season where apples are falling from trees, and there are pumpkin leftovers galore – it seemed apt to share this great recipe once more.
Super simple with a tasty twist, this crumble really is worth a try.
Apple, Fig & Pumpkin Crumble Serves 4-6
You will need:
1 x baking dish approx 8″ diameter by 3″ deep
100g (3.5oz) chilled hard butter cut into small cubes (plus 25g for the pan)
100g (3.5oz) sugar – I use 50g of dark sugar and 50g of white (but you can just use white) (plus 25g for the pan)
200g (70z) plain (all-purpose) flour
25g Grana Padano Hard Italian Cheese finely grated
100g pumpkin flesh chopped
3 large peeled and chopped cooking apples (approx. 300g)
4 figs – quartered
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 160 degrees if fan-assisted or 180 if not. (320 – 350 in Fahrenheit or gas mark 4)
Place the 100g of sugar, butter and 200g of flour with the grated cheese in a large bowl and gently work into a crumble.
Spread crumble out on a baking tray and bake for 15 mins.
While baking prep the apple, fig and pumpkin.
In a large pan heat approx. 25g of butter and 25g of sugar.
Add the apple fig and pumpkin and soften on a low-medium heat for 10 mins.
As it softens you can reduce the size of the pieces if needed – they should be bite size but still chunky.
Once softened, remove the crumble from the oven and mix in 50% of it with the fruit. keep the remaining 50% for the top.
You’re allowed to make a mess!
Either bake the crumble straight away and serve, or you can put to one side to bake later.
What unusual ingredients do you add to recipes to give them a tasty twist?
*This is not a sponsored post
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