Pears with Macaroon Crumble Topping (Gluten Free)

As you can tell from my recent recipes/posts, Autumn is well and truly upon us now and to many it is their favourite culinary season of the year. I myself, am starting to appreciate what is on offer properly during Autumn for the first time, now that I actually get to write about it.

Watching the likes of Nigel Slater and Valentine Warner on tv, you can really discover what things are coming into season right now and how to make use of them – apples and pears being a few of the best known fruits for this time of year.

So it is appropriate that this delicious recipe is pear related and ideal for an autumnal day, especially after a sunday lunch. As ever, I asked my mum for the story behind this recipe and this is what she told me…

A friend gave me some freshly picked pears from his garden – after eating a few, I decided to make a couple of my favourite dishes, both are gluten free. Apart from ‘Tarte au Poire’ a classic French pudding, cooked pear recipes are not easy to find.

This one is a particlar favourite as it is a change from apple crumble and the addition of macarons gives it a slightly different flavour. I serve it warm with either home-made custard or cream.

The other recipe I shall be making for Sunday lunch as it is refreshing and not to heavy a pudding after a Sunday Roast. It is worth the wait!

2¼lbs (1kg) Ripe Pears
4ozs (125g) Caster Sugar – unrefined
Juice of 1 Lime
70zs (200g) Plain Flour or Gluten Free Plain Flour
4ozs (100g) Butter
12 Macaroons (check the ingredients)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F Gas 4 or 170C Fan Oven

1 Peel, core and cut the pears into large pieces and put into a saucepan with the lime juice and 1oz (25g) of sugar and cook for a few minutes until softened. Then spoon into a dish.

2 Sift the flour, cut the butter into small cubes, and either rub into the flour to make fine breadcrumbs or whizz in a food processor.

3 Add the remaining sugar and mix again.

4 Crumble the macaroons and stir in to the mixture.

5 Sprinkle the crumbs over the fruit without pressing down and bake in the oven for 20/30 minutes until golden brown.

Serve with cream or custard.

Apples can be substituted for pears.

Proof is in the pudding…

and in the vinegar it seems!

After enjoying another hour of foraging for fruits in our local wood as we promised ourselves, we ended up with another 2 pounds of blackberries, 2 pounds of sloes and half a pound of elderberries.

Once home we started the cooking and baking process, with my girlfriend making me a Blackberry and Apple Crumble for the first time ever, while I attempted to make mum’s recipe of Blackberry Vinegar.

The smell around the house of cooking blackberries was so intoxicating! All our pots and pans were taking on a deep red glaze as was the sink when it came to washing them all.

Having never made anything like this before I think the results were fantastic. We had some of the blackberry vinegar with some salad leaves and brie to start and had some of the delicious crumble for pudding. I am now converted into home baking especially with home grown and foraged produce. I am already looking forward to supper tonight as more of the crumble will be enjoyed!

Now to decide what to do with the sloes and elderberries…

Blackberry and Apple Crumble (Gluten Free)

First read… Proof is in the pudding…

8ozs Blackberries
1 large cooking apple
1 tabelspoon caster sugar for the fruit
4ozs Gluten free flour
2ozs Stork/Cooking margarine
3 tabelspoons demerara sugar
Oats for the topping

Use a pre greased oven proof dish for best results.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F Gas 4 or 170C Fan Oven.

1 Cut the apple into bitesize chunks and place in a non stick saucepan along with the blackberries. Add some boiling water and the tablespoon of caster sugar and heat until the apples are soft but have some bite.

2 While thats cooking, mix the flour and cooking margarine in a mixing bowl and sift it through your fingers until it resembles a breadcrumb consistency.

3 Add the 2 tablespoons of demarara sugar to the pasty mix and stir in well.

4 Place the warmed fruit into the greased oven proof dish and cover with the pastry mix.

5 Level the pastry mix with a fork and add a tablespoon of demarara sugar to the topping.

6 Finally add some oats over the top of the dish. Most coeliacs are not allergic to oats if they are not eaten everyday (Source: Coeliacs Society).

7 Bake in the oven for 30 to 35 mins or till the topping is golden brown.

Serve with either cream or custard.

Urban Foraging

When I was younger, the idea of being dragged out for the afternoon fruit picking with the family was as much fun as going to the dentist. But recently, with the advent of TV shows like River Cottage, ‘foraging/fruit picking’ has become a growing trend, which I got suprisingly hooked by when going for a walk this afternoon (saturday) in the woods behind our home.

We started to notice bush upon bush of untouched blackberries within a few minutes of our walk, so abrubtly turned round, picked up a container and went back to start filling it. Within only a few minutes, we had collected just under a pound of blackberries and were already deciding what to do with them.

When we got back home we decided that we would try to make three things from them all:

Blackberry and Apple Crumble (Gluten Free)
Blackberry Compote
Blackberry Vinegar

the last two being more of mum’s suggestions and recipes. Over the next few days I will add the recipes on here, once I have tried them out.

Now I realise why we were dragged around picking fruit as children, as you cannot find fruit this fresh in your local supermarket!

On the walk home, we also noticed bushes of sloes and elderberries, so if tomorrow is fine weather, I think another walk is in order. Already have some ideas as to what to do with them!