Pineapple and Strawberry Crumble

Yeah. So once a month, something happens to me. It’s like I go CRAZY.  CRAAAAAAAZY. You get my drift? Who needs Halloween, baby – you’ve got it going down at my house every 28 days. Hmm, I wonder if that’s why that horror movie was called ’28 Days Later’? Who needs zombies when you’ve got a pre-menstrual woman on your hands? I understand now, why we  were packed off to the outskirts of town…we needed to freakin’ get away. From everyone. The women in those days were probably delighted, even if it meant sleeping in a cave. Heck, I’d do it. Once a month, I become a complete and utter maniac. I’m sorry sisters, I know this doesn’t reflect kindly on our sex, admitting this, but man alive – one minute I’m raging, the next, crying. I am more obsessed with chocolate than Willy Harcourt-Cooze. How the hell did I become such a horrible cliché?  Suddenly, everything – and I mean EVERYTHING, is highly annoying. I drew up a list of all the things that are irritating me right now (please be warned, this is not for sensitive viewers):

Capiche?

So I made crumble. Why? Because I wanted to. I don’t need to justify myself to you. Geez.  It was good, warm out of the oven with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. The original recipe says to toss the fruit in a cornflour, sugar and flour mixture, I replaced the cornflour with custard powder, and when I make this again I will omit the  1/4 cup of flour completely, because I felt the crumble could have benefitted from being a bit more juicy. This is a lovely spring/summer take on a winter pud and surprisingly, it doesn’t annoy me.  

Pineapple and Strawberry Crumble

Adapted from Joy the Baker

serves 6

400g strawberries, hulled and cut in half

2 small pineapples, peeled and diced

3 tbsp sugar ( You may need more – depending on how tart your fruit is)

1 heaped tbsp Custard powder

1/4 cup flour ( I will leave this out next time I make this crumble)

pinch of salt

For the Crumble:

2/3 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

125g cold butter, cut into cubes

1 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup flaked almonds (optional)

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 180C. Toss the fruit together in a greased baking dish. In a jug, whisk together the custard powder, sugar, salt and 1/4 cup flour if using. Toss the mixture with the diced fruit. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar for the crumble mix. Add the cold butter cubes and rub them into the flour mixture, until is resembles breadcrumbs. Add the oats and flaked almonds  and mix together. Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the fruit. Place in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown and bubbling. Remove from the oven and allow to  cool for at least 15 minutes before serving. Serve with vanilla ice cream.