Recipe: Crumble-topped Pear & Almond Slice

Another week, another recipe to use up what's lurking around my fridge. This week, pears.

After getting Ruby Tandoh's book Crumb the other week I've bookmarked a few recipes to try. You may remember rye & caraway bagels, they went down very well. This recipe is essentially a sweet bread topped with honeyed pears, almonds and crumble. Great with a steaming mug of coffee for breakfast.

Although there was no picture in the book, it did state to roll out to a rectangular shape...I went for more of a pizza slice, no one complained!

Crumble-topped pear & almond slice
(Recipe from Ruby Tandoh's Crumb, serves 8).

300g strong white flour
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey
190ml milk

For the pear topping:

4 firm dessert pears, such as Williams, Comice or Bosc (although I used Conference and they were fine)
30g unsalted butter
4 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp ground allspice
70g flaked almonds

For the crumble topping:

50g unsalted butter, room temperature
50g white flour
40g soft light brown sugar
30g flaked almonds, finely chopped

Combine the flour, yeast and honey together in a mixing bowl. In a small pan, heat the honey and milk on a low temperature until tepid. Pour into the dry ingredients, mix and knead for 5-10 minutes. The dough will become less sticky. Loosely cover with clingfilm and leave for an hour at room temperature. The dough will double in size.

Meanwhile, prepare the pears. Peel, core and slice. Melt the butter with honey and allspice on low in a large pan. Once melted, increase to a medium heat and add the pears to caramelised. They will soften and turn golden after 5 minutes if stirred regularly. If they start to disintegrate, remove from the heat. Stir in the flaked almonds and leave to cool.

For the crumble, rub together the butter, flour and sugar between your fingertips until the mixture clumps together. Add the chopped almonds and chill in the fridge.

Lightly flour a work surface and turn out the risen dough. Roll to around 20x30cm. Place on a large, lined baking tray and prove for 30-45 minutes. Heat the oven to 200 degrees.

Once proved, arrange the pears on the risen dough with a 1cm border. Sprinkle over the crumble and brush the edges with the leftover honey from the pears. Bake for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 180 degrees and bake for a further 20 minutes.

Recipe: Rye Caraway Bagels

This week I decided to go back to basics. When first starting this blog my intention was to learn to bake at home. I had a long list of everything I wanted to try and over two years on there's still so much I feel like I haven't covered.

Top of said list, bagels. The recipe is from Ruby Tandoh's first baking book, Crumb, which is full of simple, unpretentious home bakes and great flavour combinations.

Rye caraway bagels

(Makes 8, recipe from Ruby Tandoh's Crumb)

325g strong white flour

125g dark rye flour

7g instant dried yeast

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

250ml lukewarm water

1 tbsp oil

2 tbsp caraway seeds

Flour or polenta, to dust

2 tbsp bicarbonate of soda

4 tbsp water

1/2 tsp salt

30g poppy seeds

Oil, to grease

Mix together the flours and yeast in a large bowl. Add the salt and sugar, followed by the water and oil. Combine well with hands or on a medium speed with a dough hook in a stand mixer. Continue to knead for 10 minutes (on a low speed if using a stand mixer). The mix should be much less sticky than regular breads. Gently knead in the caraway seeds before covering the bowl with cling film and leaving to prove for 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

Turn out the risen dough, divide into 8 and shape. To shape into bagels, roll into a ball, push your finger through the centre and twirl around your finger to widen the hole. Dust a baking tray with flour or polenta, place the shaped bagels on and leave to prove for 30-45 minutes at room temperature. The bagels should have risen to almost 1 1/2 times their size.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 180 degrees and bring a large pan of water to the boil. Add the bicarbonate of soda to the boiling water and turn down to simmer. In small batches, cook the bagels in the water for 60 seconds each side. Remove with a slotted spoon and place onto well-greased baking trays.

Mix together the 4 tbsp of water and salt and brush over the bagels. Sprinkle with poppy seeds and bake for 25 minutes.

Chocolate & Lime Mini Cakes

Inspired by last week's The Great British Bake Off, I found this recipe for chocolate and lime cake by a GBBO graduate, Ruby Tandoh.

Not a flavour combination I've tried before, but it's won me over. These cakes are so light and airy and the lime adds to the fresh feel. Not the usual dense chocolate cakes I'm used to...but that just makes it perfectly ok to eat a plate to myself.

Although these cakes are simple to make and have no complicated ingredients, along the way you will be using three different bowls. This requires a little coordination (though probably more for me!) so be sure to fully read the method before you start.

Chocolate and lime mini cakes
(Recipe adapted from Ruby Tandoh, The Guardian)

150g dark chocolate
125g salted butter, cubed
zest of 3 limes
3 large eggs, separated
200g caster sugar
70g plain flour

Heat the oven to 170 degrees and thoroughly grease a silicone mould. (Ruby uses one 22cm loose bottomed cake tin lined with baking paper...this will be a lot easier to remove than individual mini cakes from a silicone moulds - the choice is yours)!

To start, melt the chocolate over a pan of barely simmering water, or on a low temperature in the microwave for short bursts.

Into the melted chocolate, stir in the butter and zest until fully melted. Set aside to cool.

Whisk together the egg yolks and 100g sugar until creamy and pale in colour.

In a clean, dry bowl whisk the egg whites until foamy. Whilst continuing to whisk, add the remaining 100g sugar a spoon at a time, whisking well after each addition. Continue until the mixture leaves a soft, glossy peak.

At this point, you'll have all three bowls on the go! To combine them...

Fold the egg yolk mixture into the chocolate mixture. Now fold a third of this into the egg whites until just combined. Add the next third, and so on.

Sift in the flour, gently fold until just combined - it this stage its really important to keep as much of the air in the batter as possible. Add the remaining flour by sifting into the bowl and fold once more.

Spoon the wobbly, light batter into the tin/mini cake moulds.

If you choose to make individual mini cakes, bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. For one 22cm cake, bake for 30 - 35 minutes.

Leave to cool in the tin before turning out.

Serve with a drizzle of chocolate ganache.

Find my recipe on Supergolden Bakes #cookblogshare