Quince & Craisin Crumble

What did you do for Mother's Day? Mother's Day for my family turned more into Mother's Intense Weekend of Eating. It's what our family does best. The finale to this weekend of eating was a home-cooked meal including a dessert baked by yours truly. We were so stuffed from all the eating we had already done that my brother prepared a light but delicious dinner; seared fresh abalone, sashimi, seaweed salad and a salmon, avocado, radish, cucumber and tomato salad with wafu dressing.

Live abalone

Seared abalone

Sashimi

Now what to do for dessert? Originally my Mum was extremely keen on brownies. I bought all the ingredients for them, but then we all got distracted by the idea of a warm crumble while watching Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall make beetroot crumble and beetroot brownies on the Lifestyle Food channel. After brunch at Sopra, we noticed some quinces on special at Fratelli Fresh and I remembered Lisa of spicy icecream mentioning that she was planning to do some baking with quinces. I'd never baked quince before but I thought experiment with it in my crumble. While trying to sort out the recipe in my head my Mum also pulled out a sample of Craisins (dried cranberries) that she had received in the mail, and I thought, why not?

I think it was a success. Considering that it was a totally improvised recipe, the result was a beautifully sticky toffee-like filling with a crunchy brown crumble on top, fairly well balanced in terms of sweetness and sourness. And so good with vanilla ice cream.

Quince and Craisin Crumble
For the filling:
2 quinces, peeled, cored and diced
1 cup sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 tsp brandy

For the crumble:
(taken from crumble recipe in Sydney Food by Bill Granger)
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tbsp quick cooking oats
100g butter, chopped into small pieces

Place chopped quince, butter, sugar and cinnamon in a small saucepan on medium heat and stir until butter has melted. Cover and allow to boil for 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Uncover and lower heat and continue to stir for about half an hour until the sauce thickens and the quince is softened. Taste quinces and add sugar if it is still too tart.

If you're not in a rush like I was, the quinces should eventually turn rose coloured. Remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Place dried cranberries in a bowl with brandy and add cold water until the fruit is completely covered. Soak for an hour or so.

Prepare the crumble: Place oats, brown sugar, flour and baking powder and mix well. Add the butter and rub between your finger tips until the mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs. When you are ready to assemble your crumbles, preheat your oven to 200 degrees C. Drain and rinse your cranberries and stir into quince filling. Spoon filling into 8 small ramekins and cover generously with crumble mixture. Pat crumble mixture down lightly.

Bake for 20 minutes or until top is golden brown and filling is bubbling up. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

Yep so I was in a rush and my quinces were still yellow when I put the mixture in the oven, but the filling ended up having a wonderfully gooey, toffee consistency. The crumble was so crunchy and warm and the vanilla ice cream helped to lighten the stickyness of the filling. The quinces turned out to be a lovely filling for the crumble with their slight sourness and the cranberries add some nice colour :)