On a high

I had a fair bit of cranberry sauce left over from Christmas and decided to use it in something sweet. Seeing as this is my last recipe of 2011 it had to be something special. Cranberry apple crumble! The cranberry is slightly sharp so it contrasts nicely with the sweet crumble topping and soft apples. The ginger in the crumble topping gives a hint of spice. I've used small ramekins for the crumble since theres nothing nicer than receiving your own individual dessert, touches me everytime. 

Ingredients

Crumble

The key to a good crumble is to use cold butter and to squeeze the mixture to get different sized crumble lumps which will have different textures. Light brown demerara will give the crumble a slight caramel note.

120g cold unsalted butter

160g plain flour

60g light brown demerara

¼ tsp ground ginger

Directions

Add the ingredients to a bowel and rub with your fingers until a breadcrumb consistency is reached. Refrigerate when finished to make it extra crunchy. Top the apple cranberry mix by squeezing handfuls of the crumble on to get large and small compacted hunks that will get crunchy.

Apple

I sauté my apple lightly in alcohol to prevent it being too dry or undercooked.

Ingredients

150mls cider

2 Bramley apples

2 eating apples

glug of apple juice

½ lemon

2 tbsp of agrave nectar (to taste)

5 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

Directions

Add the spices and liquids to a pan and bring to a simmer. Slice the apples into thicknesses of around 5 mm and add to the pan. Cook over a low heat for ten minutes. Add the apple to the crumble dishes with a little of the infusion syrup.

When ready top the apple with a layer of cranberry sauce and then a layer of crumble. Bake for around 14 mins at 175 degrees centigrade until the crumble turns light brown. Serve with ice cream or yogurt.