What could possibly be more British than the humble fruit crumble? And what could possibly be a better and tastier sounding rhyme?
In the Co-op the other day I noticed that they were selling gooseberries. Quite simply, I had to have them. Everyone loves a crumble and I hadn’t had a gooseberry crumble since I was a kid. I thought I’d make this childhood favourite of mine a little more adult.
You can serve this however you like; plain, with cream, ice-cream or custard. I’m going to suggest you use custard, and make that a little more ‘adult’ too
We’ll start with the custard as this will be a little time consuming.
Ingredients
- 55ml/2fl oz single cream
- 570ml/1 pint whole milk
- 4g finely ground bud or hash OR 8g finely ground leaves
- 1 vanilla pod or ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 4 egg yolks
- 30g/1oz caster sugar
- 2 level tsp cornflour
Method
You need to start by infusing the weed into the milk and cream. Pour the milk and cream into a bowl suspended over a pan of water, or a bain-marie, add the weed and allow this to simmer gently for at least 30 minutes. Keep stirring and add more milk and cream if too much evaporates. Allow this to cool then pour through a fine sieve to try and remove the lumps. (I don’t usually bother removing the lumps when cooking but nobody likes lumpy custard!)
Pour the milk/cream/weed mixture into a saucepan (check that you still have 625ml/1 pint 2fl oz of liquid) together with the vanilla pod (if you are using extract, hold on – we’ll come to this later!) and slowly bring to a simmering point over a low heat. If you were using a fresh vanilla pod remove it at this stage.
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a bowl until well blended.
Pour the hot milk and cream onto the eggs and sugar mix, constantly whisking all the time with a balloon whisk. Return this mixture to the pan, add your vanilla extract (if using) and heat over a very low heat stirring gently with a wooden spatula until the custard thickens.
Pour into a jug and serve at once.
So! You’ll be needing that crumble to serve it over! I’m going for an old English garden feel with this one; of course you can use any fruit you like – rhubarb, peach and raspberry, apple and blackberry to name just a few – but I’m feeling so terribly nostalgic for this old favourite that I thought I would share it with you.
Ingredients
- 400g/14oz gooseberries
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 170g/6oz plain flour
- 85g/3oz Cannabutter
- 85g/3oz caster sugar
Method
Top and tail and wash the gooseberries.
Put them in a saucepan with the brown sugar and a small amount of water and simmer gently until the gooseberries go soft. I like my gooseberries to be quite tart, so add more sugar if you have a sweeter tooth.
Once they are cooked you may find that you have a lot of liquid in the pan. You can drain some of the liquid and keep it for anything else that you like.
Put your cooked gooseberries in an oven dish.
Now for the fun and messy part. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the caster sugar and cannabutter. Using your hands mix this together well until it feels a little like bread crumbs. Pour this mixture over the top of the gooseberries.
Place in an oven at 160C until topping is golden brown. Serve with the hot custard and enjoy!


