Peach and Strawberry Crumble

As the weather turns decidedly more Autumnal my mind turns to warming food. You can't beat a crumble in the Autumn, especially if you've got some windfall apples or blackberries. As it's not quite Autumn yet I decided to go for more summery flavours in this crumble - even though I served it with lashings of custard rather than ice-cream!

I adore strawberries in a crumble, I love the colour that the juices turn to, as you can see from the picture above. I normally do rhubarb but decided to try peaches this time and it was delicious!

As normal, I made more of the crumble mixture than the recipe states. Mainly because Mr M prefers more crumble for fruit, he's quite particular about his fruit:crumble ratio so I always make 1.5 times the stated topping for any crumble!

I also kind of wing it on the topping, throwing in whatever I have to hand. This one had ground almonds and oats but I could quite as easily throw in some sliced almonds or other nuts like chopped walnuts.

This serves about 4-6 depending on how large you like your portions!

Peach and Strawberry Crumble

Ingredients

For the filling;

2 tbsps fresh lemon juice

1.5 tbsps cornflour

450g strawberries, halved

650g peaches, peeled pitted and sliced

100g light brown sugar

For the topping;

85g plain flour

50g golden caster sugar

40g rolled oats

25g ground almonds

1 tsp ground cinnamon

70g butter, room temperature, diced

zest of 1 orange

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Lightly grease a large ovenproof baking dish and set to one side.

To assemble the filling; take a mixing bowl and whisk together the lemon juice and cornflour until smooth. Add the strawberries and peaches and gently toss with the brown sugar until the fruit is completely coated. Spread the fruit mixture out over the bottom of the greased dish.

To make the topping; In a mixing bowl (or food processor if you prefer), mix the flour, pats, almonds, sugar and cinnamon together before adding the butter.  Rub together to make coarse crumbs and then stir in the orange zest.  

Sprinkle the crumble mixture over the fruit filling and bake in the oven for around 40 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the top of the crumble is golden. 

Yum! Now serve with cream, ice-cream or custard. I think cream is actually my favourite so will try that next time!