Mad for rhubarb in May’s kitchen!

We’ve had a great time over the weekend giving our ‘Gardening on the Menu’ talk to visitors to RHS Harlow Carr. We were based in the fantastic Kitchen Gardens there and were giving tips and ideas for growing and cooking some seasonal fruit and veg. Of course rhubarb featured heavily and Francesco, one of the gardeners there let me rummage around in their rhubarb plot for some tasty tender stalks.

This rhubarb crumble seemed to go down quite well with the visitors who had a taste and I promised I would pop the recipe on here to share whilst we’ve got plenty of rhubarb in the veg plot.

The crumble topping can be made ahead and will keep in the fridge for up to a week. It can be used on any hot fruit but we like to add it into yoghurt with some cold cooked fruit – rhubarb at this time of year of course!

Crunchy Rhubarb Crumble with orange cream

Serves 2 generously. Takes about half an hour.

For the crumble:

50g butter, room temperature

25g plain flour

25g porridge oats

75g light muscovado sugar

50g chopped hazlenuts

Good teaspoon ground ginger

For the filling:

4-5 sticks of rhubarb

Sugar to taste – a good spoonful

Zest and juice of an orange

For the cream:

Half a tub marscapone cheese

Tbspn icing sugar

Zest and juice of half an orange

Make the cream ahead of time to let the flavours really blend together. Simply add the icing sugar and zest to the marscapone then stir in as much juice as you fancy.
Put the crumble ingredients into a bowl and rub together with your fingers until the butter is mixed in – you will have a fairly crumbly mixture rather than fine breadcrumbs like a traditional crumble mix!
Spread out on a smallish baking tray (I used one that is 26x16cm) and pop in the oven 180C/fan 160/gas 4 for only 15-20 minutes until the mix has spread out and is golden brown and a little crispy to touch.
Leave to cook for just a couple of minutes then run a spoon through it to break it up into smallish pieces. Leave to cool.
Whilst the crumble is in the oven put your rhubarb on to cook. I simply cut mine into 2cm sticks and simmer gently in a shallow lidded pan with the juice of an orange and some of the zest. Simmer for about 6-7 minutes depending on how thick the pieces are until the rhubarb is soft but not mushy.
Put the rhubarb into your serving dish and keep warm until the crumble is done but save the juices and pour them into a small pan along with a teaspoon of caster sugar.
Pop the pan onto a fairly high heat and bubble the liquid, stirring all the time until they have reduced down to a lovely sweet thick syrup.
When you’re ready to serve put some fruit in a dish then scatter over some of the crumble. Drizzle over some of the juices and serve with a large dollop of the orange cream!