Lemon and almonds have always been popular ingredients in traditional British cooking. If you don’t make lemon curd at home, the National Trust sells their own version.
Makes 18
FOR THE ALMOND CRUMBLE TOPPING
100g plain flour
40g ground almonds, or almond flour
80g granulated sugar
Finely grated zest of ½ an unwaxed lemon
80g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
1 drop almond essence
FOR THE MUFFINS
180g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g granulated sugar
2 eggs
100g natural yoghurt
Finely grated zest of ½ an unwaxed lemon
1 drop almond essence
180g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
120g lemon curd
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line two muffin tins with standard cupcake cases.
To make the crumble topping, mix the flour, almonds and sugar. Add the lemon zest to the butter along with a drop of almond essence, then pour into the dry ingredients, stirring until it has the consistency of fine breadcrumbs. Set aside.
To make the muffins, mix the flour, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, mix the eggs, yoghurt, lemon zest and almond essence together, then stir in the butter. Don’t worry if the mixture looks a little curdled. Stir into the dry ingredients until fully incorporated, but don’t overmix. Stir the lemon curd to soften.
If it seems a little on the stiff side, add a teaspoon or two of warm water. Quickly stir it through the muffin batter.
Divide the mixture between the muffin cases: they should be about half full, no more. Spoon over the almond crumble. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Best eaten while still warm.
In Britain, pumpkins were grown mostly for their handsome looks – visit Slindon (West Sussex) in autumn to see a wonderful range. The unusual spicing is from an early pumpkin recipe in The Compleat Cook (1655). Use mixed spice if preferred.
Makes 16–18
350g slice of pumpkin, deseeded
80g wholemeal flour
80g plain flour
100g soft pale brown sugar
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
180g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
2 eggs
1 medium eating apple, peeled and grated
FOR THE CRUMBLE TOPPING
80g plain flour
60g granulated sugar
30g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
50g walnuts, chopped
Preheat the oven to 210°C.
Wrap the pumpkin in foil and bake for 1 hour or until soft. Discard the skin and mash the flesh; you should have about 225g of pumpkin purée. Set aside.
Turn the oven down to 180°C. Line two muffin tins with standard cupcake cases.
To make the crumble topping: mix the flour and sugar in a bowl, then pour in the melted butter in a thin stream, stirring constantly to make a breadcrumb-like texture. Stir in the walnuts. Set aside.
To make the muffins mix the flours, brown sugar, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt and spices together in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the pumpkin purée, melted butter, eggs and grated apple. Combine the two mixtures and stir well. Divide this mixture between the muffin cases. Then spoon some of the crumble topping over each one, pressing it down slightly. Bake for 15 minutes or until a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool a little before eating.
Use either cultivated blueberries or foraged wild bilberries for this North American-inspired recipe.
Makes ABOUT 18
FOR THE STREUSEL TOPPING
120g plain flour
80g granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
80g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
FOR THE MUFFINS
250g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
3 teaspoons baking powder
120g granulated sugar
1 scant teaspoon salt
2 eggs
300ml sour cream
100ml neutral-flavoured oil, such as grapeseed, sunflower or rapeseed
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
300g blueberries or bilberries
Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Line two muffin tins with standard cupcake cases.
First, make the streusel topping: mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon, then drizzle in the melted butter, stirring constantly to form a lumpy mixture. Set aside.
To make the muffins, mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with the sour cream, oil and vanilla. Combine the two mixtures. Take about 200g of the berries and dust with a little flour. Fold into the muffin mixture. (Bilberries are softer and squashier than blueberries, making the batter purple, so don’t over-mix.)
Divide the mixture between the muffin cases. Top each one with a few of the reserved berries, then with the streusel mixture, pressing it down slightly. Bake for 15–20 minutes or until a cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave to cool a little before eating.
Blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum) are of North American origin and are relatives of the bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), which is native to Europe. Blueberries are the fruit of choice for many North American cobblers and cakes with streusel or crumble toppings. Cultivated varieties of blueberries, grown in various countries, are the ones that line our supermarket shelves – ‘blueberries as big as the end of your thumb’, as the poet Robert Frost wrote.
In Britain it is worth looking for the blueberry’s wild relatives, known as bilberries, whortleberries and various other regional names. They grow on heathlands and acid-soiled moorlands such as that found around Brimham Rocks and Roseberry Topping in North Yorkshire, Marsden Moor in West Yorkshire and the Long Mynd in Shropshire.
Look for bilberries in late July or August. Take a picnic, hat and sunscreen and spend an afternoon on the moors. Gathering bilberries is a slow task, but to pick a pound or so for muffins or a cobbler shouldn’t take long. If boredom sets in, and berries are sparse, even a few are nice mixed with other summer fruit for puddings and cakes. They are smaller than blueberries, with a more acidic, complex flavour and will stain fingers, mouths and clothes purple. This problem can be partially resolved by acquiring a berry comb, a box-like device with a series of wire prongs at the front. Rake this through the bushes in an upward motion, and the berries collect in the enclosed end.
Crumbles are never going to be health foods, but these crunchy little squares pack in oats, seeds and nuts. Decorate with chocolate (dark, milk or white) if you like.
Makes 16 PIECES
300g dried apricots
90g plain flour
130g porridge oats
60g soft pale brown sugar
90g butter, cut into cubes
FOR THE TOPPING
60g demerara sugar
60g plain flour
60g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
40g walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped
20g (1½ tablespoons) sunflower seeds
20g (1½ tablespoons) pumpkin seeds
10g (1 tablespoon) sesame seeds, toasted (see cooking tip)
50g chocolate, chopped (optional)
The day before, put the apricots into a bowl with just enough water to cover and leave to soak overnight.
Cook the apricots in their soaking water for about 10 minutes (add a little more water if necessary, but don’t overdo it). Drain and pulse the apricots in a food processor or coarsely chop to make a rough purée.
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line a shallow 20 cm square cake tin with baking paper.
Mix the flour, oats and sugar. Rub in the butter to make a crumbly dough. Press into the base of the tin to make an even layer. Spread the apricot purée over.
For the topping, mix the demerara sugar and flour and stir in the melted butter. Add the nuts and seeds and drop small spoonfuls over the apricots. Bake for 30–40 minutes, until the top is golden. Leave to cool in the tin.
To decorate, melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water, then drizzle it in thin lines over the crumble. Chill for about 6 hours or overnight before cutting into 16 pieces.
COOKING TIP To toast sesame seeds, put them in a small heavy frying pan (use no fat) and stir over low heat until they turn golden.
Plums are found in numerous varieties. Greengages are the English name for a specific type of plum with sweet, honeyed flesh, named after Sir Thomas Gage, who introduced them to England in the eighteenth century. Damsons are small, richly flavoured plums, with acidic dark red flesh; they have a long but less well-recorded history in Britain. The name is thought to derive from Damascus, where they were believed to originate.
One National Trust location that has revealed a treasure trove in relation to plums is Ickworth, near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. A rediscovered gardener’s notebook listed over 200 varieties of local plum, gage, pear and apple trees grown there in the early twentieth century, which has provided inspiration for the replanting of Ickworth’s walled garden.
Wimpole (Cambridgeshire) also has a fabulous collection of orchard fruit including plums, apples, and pears, and is well worth a visit. The West Midlands was an important plum-growing area and, in recognition of this, the garden at Croome (Worcestershire) has been replanted with local varieties, including Warwickshire Drooper and Pershore (Yellow Egg).
At Brockhampton, visitors can pick their own damsons in late summer. This house is located in Herefordshire, a country historically important for growing damsons. Another area traditionally associated with this fruit is the Lyth Valley in southern Cumbria. Here, near Sizergh, the trees are a feature of local hedgerows, and are a mass of pink blossom in the spring.
Peaches and apricots were the most prized of orchard fruit in big houses, eaten fresh for summer desserts and preserved with sugar for winter. The British climate, even in sheltered areas, can be too unpredictable and chilly for these trees. Wealthy owners of large mansions wanted reliable supplies and built special glasshouses in which to grow them. A good example, in the northernmost part of England, is at Cragside in Northumberland. Here, Lord Armstrong, the former owner of the estate, applied his engineering genius to the Orchard House. This greenhouse, now partially restored, is on a glorious scale: a vast glasshouse for growing pears, citrus fruit, peaches and apricots. The fruit trees grow in pots on cast-iron bases which can be rotated, ensuring symmetrical growth and even ripening, a system that appears to be unique to this site. Under the south-facing terraces that support them runs a system of vents originally intended to transmit hot air, providing warmth for their root-balls, prolonging the fruiting season. Other peach houses include a ruined example at Calke (Derbyshire) and peaches were also grown at Ickworth. At Wimpole a special heated wall was constructed to provide warmth for the peach trees in chilly weather.
All stone fruit are excellent fillings for crumbles and cobblers. Both peaches and apricots make lovely crumble fillings, and peaches – fresh or canned – are the classic North American choice for fruit cobblers. Their flavours harmonise especially well with almonds, flaked, chopped, or used as a flavouring, either as an essence or from crumbled amaretti biscuits.
These are sweet and rich, making them perfect for a teatime treat on a blustery autumn day.
Makes 8 PIECES
About 350g eating apples, peeled and cored
50g muscovado sugar
30g sultanas
1 teaspoon mixed spice
250g (made weight) shortcrust pastry (bought or home-made)
250g full fat cream cheese, softened
1 egg
50g caster sugar
A few drops vanilla essence
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon (preferably unwaxed)
FOR THE TOPPING
50g soft pale brown sugar
50g plain flour
50g porridge oats
50g butter, cut into small cubes
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line the base of a shallow cake tin, about 20 x 20cm, with baking paper.
Cut the apples into roughly 1cm cubes. Put them in a small oven tray with the muscovado sugar, sultanas and spice and bake for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.
While the apples are cooking, roll out the pastry and use it to line the cake tin. Prick the bottom lightly with a fork.
Make the cheesecake filling by whisking together the cream cheese, egg, caster sugar, vanilla and lemon zest. Set aside.
To make the topping, pulse the pale brown sugar, flour, oats and butter in a food processor to make a crumbly mixture; set aside.
When the apples are cooked, assemble the bars by pouring the cheese mixture into the pastry base. Spoon the fruit over the top, along with any cooking juices. Scatter the crumble topping over the fruit.
Turn the oven down to 160°C and bake for 40–50 minutes, or until the cheese mixture is set. Leave to cool and chill before cutting.
Crumble topping is essentially a sweet mix of flour, sugar and fat, rubbed together to form a mixture that can only be described as crumbly. Mix, sprinkle and bake. There is a great deal to be said for a pudding that can be prepared with speed from easily available ingredients, which everyone loves.
Crumbles have a remarkably short history. They appear to have sprung fully formed into British food habits some time in the first half of the twentieth century. Searches through historic cookbooks are in vain: nothing resembling crumble appears in the chapters devoted to puddings and desserts. The best guess is that they evolved during the Second World War, using whatever fat was available. A leaflet issued by the Ministry of Food in the 1940s apparently introduced the nation to a dish called Scottish Apple Crumble: lightly sweetened apples spiced with cinnamon, cooked under a topping of flour, oats, margarine and sugar. A little short on fat and sugar, as one might expect during rationing, it was probably called a Scottish crumble because the addition of oats suggested an association with Scotland.
The debate has carried on ever since. Do crumble toppings include oats? And if they do, are they crumbles or crisps? One man’s crisp can be another man’s crumble and it may or may not include oats. However, crisp seems to be a term used more in North America than in Britain. The North American habit of adding crumble toppings to all sorts of cakes probably has roots in German traditions of streusel toppings.
Crumble is excellent in combination with seasonal fruit that is abundant and easily grown or foraged – apples, pears, plums, blackberries, gooseberries and outdoor rhubarb. The speed and ease with which crumble can be made is of great comfort in an emergency of any kind, let alone wartime. And although butter is an all-time favourite ingredient, it has to be said that the recipe is robust enough to give adequate results using margarine.
The idea was inspired, wherever it came from. It was adopted widely into institutional and domestic catering, a staple of school dinners and family meals. An aura of relief pervaded mid-century school dining halls on days when the pudding was crumble and custard, rather than a pallid suet pudding or glutinous tapioca ‘frogspawn’.
Until the 1970s, crumbles always seem to have been sweet and based on the simple original recipe. Innovation got off to a bad start with earnest offerings from wholefood restaurants, made with wholemeal flour and dark brown sugar. These leaden crumbles convinced many who tasted them that such ingredients have no place in crumble-making. Crumbles are not health foods.
Experiments with spices and nuts, adding variety in flavour and texture, came later and the year-round availability of berries and stone fruit has significantly increased variety in fillings.
Deconstructed crumbles, with elements of fruit, crisp topping and creamy accompaniments served separately are a recent innovation. Crumble reached France in 2005 when Camille Le Foll published her book Crumbles, a runaway publishing success.
Savoury crumbles were rare until the late twentieth century. One recipe from the early 1980s involved tinned tuna and potato crisps, a useful storecupboard recipe in the days when shops had limited opening hours. They mostly involve cheese. And this raises another question: when does a crumble become a gratin? These classic dishes of French cookery have a long and honourable history. But a gratin topping is a thin layer of breadcrumbs or cheese: it never includes flour. It is the combination of flour and butter that gives character to crumble and, significantly, the French, taking this most British of desserts to heart, know it as le crumble.
An alternative to mince pies, using a shortbread-type mixture for the base.
Makes 12 SLICES
About 120g fresh cranberries
Grated zest and juice of ½ an orange (preferably unwaxed)
250–300g mincemeat
125g butter, softened
75g caster sugar
250g plain flour
Pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Line a shallow baking tin, about 18 x 30cm, with baking paper.
Put the cranberries, orange juice and zest in a saucepan and simmer gently for a few minutes, until the berries are soft, then set aside to cool. Stir into the mincemeat.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Sift in the flour and salt and mix well. Take about two thirds of this mixture and spread over the base of the tin, pressing down firmly in an even layer. Spoon the mincemeat mixture over the top and spread out gently, trying not to disturb the base layer. Scatter the remaining butter and flour mixture over the top.
Bake for 15–20 minutes or until the top is pale gold. Leave to cool in the tin, then cut into 12 pieces and store in an airtight tin.
A mixture of summer berries works well for these rich slices. Cut them small as an afternoon teatime treat.
Makes 16 PIECES
225g self-raising flour
75g ground almonds
Pinch of salt
100g caster sugar
200g butter, cut into cubes
2 egg yolks
A few drops almond essence
400g berries
Juice of ½ a lemon
50g granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cornflour
20g flaked almonds
20g pistachios, coarsely chopped
Mix the flour, ground almonds, salt and caster sugar together, preferably in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse to a crumbly texture. Mix the egg yolks and almond essence and add to the processor, mixing just enough to combine. Empty the mixture into a bowl and press together lightly to form a dough. Chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 190°C.
Line a shallow 20 cm square tin with baking paper.
Mix the berries, lemon juice, granulated sugar and cornflour.
Take about three quarters of the dough and press it into the lined tin in an even layer. Spread the berry mixture over the top. Break up the remaining dough into rough pieces and scatter this over the berries. Finish with the flaked almonds and chopped pistachios.
Bake for 50–60 minutes. Check after about 25 minutes and if the top seems to be browning too fast, turn the heat down a little and bake for a few minutes longer.
Leave to cool completely before cutting into 16 squares.
All big houses once had their own kitchen gardens. Really good examples now in the care of the National Trust include those at Wimpole (Cambridgeshire), Clumber Park (Nottinghamshire), Attingham Park (Shropshire), Beningbrough (North Yorkshire), Llanerchaeron (Ceredigion) and Tatton Park (Cheshire).
Such gardens grew rows and rows of berries and patches of currant bushes. Exactly what was fashionable depended on the century. Raspberries appear to have been known from medieval times. Redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries were novelties to the Elizabethans. Strawberries were also much loved, although the large berries that we are familiar with were unknown until the eighteenth century, when hybrids of two species of American origin were developed. New cultivars of any type of berry – yellow raspberries perhaps, or loganberries (a blackberry–raspberry hybrid) – were enthusiastically taken up by head gardeners eager to extend their range of produce.
Berries of all descriptions are a wonderful basis for crumbles. The smell of hot sugary fruit and buttery crust is divine. They are also lovely for cobblers, producing lots of juice to contrast with the scone-like topping. Strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants all mix well together and with other fruit. Berries are especially nice combined with vanilla or almond flavours. Experiment to find your favourite combinations.
