Pear and Raspberry Crumble

Hello and a happy sunday!

I have bought some pears last week and they seemed to have ripened overnight. So what to do??? One of my favorite combinations is pears and raspberries, and since I always have some of those sitting in the freezer, I thought a crumble it is. It is also a good opportunity to use up some white chocolate I have had in my storing cupboard since I made these white chocolate cookies.
I can't give exact measurements on this crumble, as I kind of make it just with rough judging.

I still try my best and tell you what I used:

For the crumble mixture:

• 2 tbsp of ground almonds
• 2 tbsp of oats (I used my porridge oats)
• 2 heaped tbsp of flour
• 3 tbsp brown sugar
• roughly 100 g cold cubed butter
• pinch of salt

For the fruits:

• 3 ripe but not over pears
• a large handful of frozen raspberries
• 20 g grated white chocolate
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• optional: 1 tbsp caster sugar

And how to make it:

• first heat the oven to 175 °C (no fan)
• then make the crumble mixture: mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl together
• then, with you hands, rub the diced cold butter in there until you get a crumbly texture
• if too dry, add more butter, if too wet, add more flour
• then onto the fruit: peel and core the pears and cut into small pieces
• in a bowl mix with the lemon juice and the flour
• if your pears are rather sour, you can add some sugar here, I prefer however not to do that
• fill your pear mixture into the bottom of an oven proof dish
• top with a layer of frozen raspberries, then sprinkle with white chocolate (any chocolate will do)
• now evenly distribute your crumble mix, make sure to cover the fruit to the rim of the dish
• put in the oven and bake for 45 mins or until the top is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling
• and now serve up straight from the oven
• add some cream, ice cream, or vanilla sauce

I have mine pure as it is and I have to hold back not to finish the whole dish at once :-)

Have a lovely week everybody!

Finnish Oat Cookies

Me again, it seems to become a habit :-)
I was out of cookies! Seriously, this is an issue, it's almost as bad as being out od chocolate. Fortunately, I had all the ingredients at home to make some myself. Usually in this kind of occasions I either make yummy shortbread or american style cookies. This time I opted for something very different scandinavian style oat cookies. I have eaten them before and they were always good. So after some internet research I found a recipe easy enough to follow. But as usual (I don't know, what this is with me..) I just couldn't stick to the recipe... However, for those of you interested, this is the original post, note it is in German:

Finnische Haferkekse

Here is how I changed the ingredients list:

• 50 g butter
• 60 g oats ( I used the coarse ones I usually have in the morning for my porridge)
• 80 g brown sugar
• 30 g honey (or golden syrup)
• 1 heaped tbsp flour ( I "made" oat flour here, just blend 1 heaped tbsp of oats in the blender real fine, but regular wheat flour works well)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg

And how I made them:

• mix the oats with the brown sugar, the flour and the baking powder
• melt the butter with the honey on a low heat, let then cool to hand warm
• stir the butter mix in the oats mix and combine thoroughly
• when cooled, add the egg and mix until smooth
• here is now another change I made: let the dough sit for 20 mins to allow the oats to dwell, the result is a slightly thicker dough as before
• pre-heat the oven to 225 °C
• line a baking tray with greaseproof paper 
• and now another change to the original recipe: I poured the whole mixture out on the sheet and distributed it equally, the original post says set small amounts with a tsp on the sheet. The first one will give you one giant cookie that I have then cut into squares, the last one gives you round cookies
• now bake for 5-7 mins, don't leave the oven, they brown very quickly!
• then take out, let cool a bit
• if you have poured the whole lot out, then now cut the shapes you want before the cookies are cold and therefore crack easily OR wait until completely cool and break random bits of, so you get a random shaped selection of cookies
• if you made the round version, just let the cool on the sheet before stacking them

That's it. Very simple. Can be done in 15 mins total time. No electric mixer needed. I have mine with a cup of tea (how could it be any different...) or a coffee. Also, they keep quite long in a tin, if you manage to keep away from them long enough!