Spiced Fruit Baklava Crumble
by Meliz Berg
This has become my ‘I’ll bring dessert’ dessert. I love how the tartness of baked fruits can cut through the sweetness of a sponge, tart or crumble. However, I always feel a little hard done by with regular crumbles, as the fruit stews at the bottom rather than caramelising resplendently, like the topping, say, of a tarte tatin. So, I’ve flipped this crumble over and infused it with the mesmerising flavours, scents and textures of a nutty baklava. Although I’ve written the recipe for peaches and plums, you really can use any fruit you’d typically use in a crumble or tart, hence the more generic title; peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, pears, rhubarb and berries all work brilliantly. 👋 The Cherrypick food team would recommend preparing the full 8 portions for this recipe and not scaling the recipe up or down.
Method
Based on 8 servings, adjust as needed.
Step 1
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/400°F/gas mark 6.
Step 2
Line a 23cm (9in) diameter round pie dish with parchment paper. This will leave you with 8 servings.
Step 3
Add all of the plain flour, baking powder, rolled oats, 60g of the pistachios (save back 25g for the topping), ground cinnamon, butter and dark brown sugar into a food processor and pulse slowly until the butter starts to form large crumbs, but hasn’t been ground down to a powder. Pour the crumble mixture into the lined pie dish and press it down using your hands so that the top is completely flat. Bake in the oven on the middle rack for 15 minutes.
Step 4
While the crumble base is baking, add 300ml cold water, the caster sugar, runny honey, orange blossom water (or half the amount of orange extract), orange juice, cinnamon stick and cloves to a small saucepan and place on the hob over a medium-high heat. Once it starts to boil, leave it on a high simmer for around 10–15 minutes until the mixture has thickened and reduced by half, then turn off the heat.
Step 5
While the crumble is baking in the oven and the syrup is reducing on the hob, mix together the fruit slices, orange zest and orange juice along with a pinch of ground cinammon in a bowl.
Step 6
After the crumble has been baking for 15 minutes, take it out of the oven, and scrape the flattened top a little with a fork so that the topping starts to resemble a crumble. Pop the crumble back in the oven on the middle rack for another 5 minutes until the top starts to look a little crunchier. Carefully take the dish out again, arrange the fruit slices on top of the crumble, and scrape out any of the juicy residue left in the bowl and onto the fruit. Using a spoon, evenly pour the syrup over the fruit and crumble. Sprinkle over the demerara sugar and pop the dish back onto the middle rack of the oven. Bake for another 20–25 minutes, or until the fruit has softened, but is still tender, and the tops have ever so slightly caramelised.
Step 7
Take the dish out of the oven, sprinkle over the remaining 25g ground pistachios so that they stick to the hot syrupy fruit, and let the crumble cool for at least 30 minutes before you try to remove it from the dish. Once cooled but still a little warm, gently lift the crumble out of the pie dish using the paper, and onto a large flat plate, carefully easing the paper out from underneath as you do so. Serve with cream or custard and an extra sprinkling of ground pistachios.
- Ingredients
- Based on 8 servings
-
0.5 Large Orange, juice and zest of 1x Sainsbury's Oranges -
0.5 tsp Baking Powder 1x Sainsbury's Baking Powder 160g -
50g Rolled Jumbo Oats 1x Flahavan's Organic Jumbo Oats 1kg -
100g Caster Sugar 1x Sainsbury's White Caster Sugar 500g -
0.5 Cinnamon Stick 1x Sainsbury's Cinnamon Sticks 13g -
2 tbsp Runny Honey 1x Sainsbury's Runny Honey 340g -
85g Pistachios, 25g ground in the food processor to finish 1x Sainsbury's Pistachio Nuts 100g -
1 tsp Orange Blossom Water 1x Nielsen-Massey Pure Orange Extract 60ml -
3 Cloves 1x Sainsbury's Whole Cloves 30g -
50g Soft Dark Brown Sugar 1x Sainsbury's Fairtrade Dark Soft Brown Sugar 500g -
150g Cold Unsalted Butter, cut into 2cm cubes 1x Sainsbury's British Butter, Unsalted 250g -
200g Plain Flour 1x Sainsbury's Plain Flour 500g -
400g Ripe Peaches, plums, or a combination of both, stoned and cut into 1cm (1⁄2in) thick slices 1x Sainsbury's Peaches, Ripe & Ready x4 -
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon 1x Sainsbury's Ground Cinnamon 38g