Soggy is what usually goes wrong with rhubarb, and Hairy Bikers rhubarb crumble deals with it in one line: a tablespoon of cornflour tossed in with the fruit. The recipe is in Perfect Pies, uses 750g of rhubarb with stem ginger, and serves six at about 465 calories.
They flag the cornflour themselves as a good tip, because it soaks up some of the juice. The ginger is their twist and they say to leave it out if you prefer.
Nothing is cooked before it goes in the dish. Rhubarb, ginger, sugar and cornflour are tossed together straight in the pie dish, the topping is rubbed by hand, and that is the whole assembly.
Hairy Bikers Rhubarb Crumble
Description
Four balls of stem ginger are cut into slivers and mixed through the raw fruit. The topping is rubbed together from flour, demerara, jumbo oats and cold butter. It goes into a hot oven at 220°C and needs only 25 to 35 minutes.
Ingredients
For the filling
For the crumble topping
Instructions
- Heat the oven: Preheat to 220°C, fan 200°C, gas 7.
- Mix the filling: Put the rhubarb, ginger, caster sugar and cornflour straight into a 1.2-litre ovenproof pie dish about 4cm deep, and toss everything together well.
- Make the topping: In a large bowl, mix the flour, demerara sugar and oats. Add the butter and rub it into the dry ingredients with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs.
- Assemble: Sprinkle the topping evenly over the rhubarb.
- Bake: Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the topping is golden and the filling is just beginning to bubble up from underneath.
- Serve: Serve piping hot with lashings of custard or cream.
FAQs
Why put cornflour in with the fruit?
Because rhubarb releases a lot of liquid and it has to go somewhere. A tablespoon tossed in with the fruit soaks up some of that juice, which keeps the underside of the topping from going soft.
They flag it in the book rather than burying it in the method. It is the one ingredient here that does not affect the taste at all.
Why such a hot oven?
Because rhubarb does not need long. Twenty-five to thirty-five minutes at 220°C is enough to soften it, and a hotter oven crisps the topping before the fruit collapses.
Their apple and blackberry crumble goes the other way at 170°C for 40 minutes, because apples take longer and its topping has soft brown sugar in it, which catches. Their plum crumble sits between the two at 200°C for 45.
Do I have to use stem ginger?
No, and they say so directly. It is their twist rather than a requirement, so leave it out and the pudding still works.
Four balls of Chinese stem ginger cut into slivers is what the recipe calls for, drained of their syrup. Ground ginger is not the same thing and would spread through the fruit rather than giving you the occasional sweet, hot bite.
How do I stop some rhubarb overcooking?
Buy sticks of a similar width, which is their advice. Thin and thick pieces in the same dish will not cook at the same rate, and you end up with some collapsed and some still firm.
Cut everything into small lengths as the recipe says, and if you do have mixed widths, cut the thicker sticks a little shorter to even things out.
What else can I do with rhubarb?
Their rhubarb and custard tart is the other pudding on the site, and it cooks the rhubarb separately so the pieces hold their shape under a set custard.
For something savoury, their rhubarb chutney uses a kilo of it with red wine vinegar and dried fruit. Rhubarb season is short, so it is worth knowing more than one thing to do with it.
