fruit crumble

Because I am always experimenting with bread recipes we do tend to have times when there are a couple of half eaten loaves in the house. I have found lots of uses for bread that is beginning to stale and this is one of them. I replace the usual crumble recipe with breadcrumbs. If you have oats feel free to add them. If you have only a bit of bread left then make a crumble as normal and supplement it with the breadcrumbs. In which case you can just mix the breadcrumbs in the with the flour before you rub the butter in.

The breadcrumbs add extra crunch and it saves any food waste.

The crumbs I used were from a freshly milled wholemeal sourdough loaf that I made so that gave it that lovely rich dark colour and a delicious tang, but any bread will taste great.

Ingredients

Fruit of your choice, I used frozen chopped apples and blackberries.

50g unsalted butter
25g granulated or caster sugar
25g dark brown sugar (but you could use 50g of just the one sugar)
50g oats
Approx 250-300g bread, made into crumbs 

Method

Because my fruit was frozen I placed it into an ovenproof dish ad popped it in the preheated oven at 180C for 20 minutes. 

In the meantime I melted the butter in a large pan and then stirred through the breadcrumbs and oats and cooked over a medium heat until beginning to colour, stirring from time to time. Sprinkle over the sugar and mix in well, continue to stir and cook until the mixture starts to caramelise a little. 

Remove the fruit from the oven and evenly sprinkle over the breadcrumb mixture. Place back in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the fruit is fully cooked and the crumble is a deep brown colour. Serve with lashings of custard or cream.