Post 192: Mini Rhubarb and Ginger Crumbles

A nice man offered me some Lazy Ginger via  ukfba.co.uk, so obviously I said I'd have some. And deep joy it duly arrived. I've already posted a rhubarb crumble on here, but rhubarb and ginger I thought might be an improvement. It's all a bit masterchef-y, isn't it.
Also I felt that my crumble mix wasn't yet up to the standard of M&S's. Their's has nice slightly chewy lumps in, and I wanted chewy lumps too.

So, here's a story of defeat snatched from the jaws of glory. Here's how I did it: I took the outer stringy red layer off 3 sticks of rhubarb and soaked it with some sugar and one tablespoon of lazy ginger.
Next for the crumble mix. For this:
- 175gs butter
- 150gs demerrera sugar
- 300gs flour (plain)

This mixed into a fairly normal looking crumble mix. I then added some brown sugar, which is very sticky. I then mixed this fairly gently so that there were a few pea sized lumps. My idea being that these would go sticky when cooked.


Then placed into ramekin dishes. And a little vegetable dish, because I didn't have quite enough ramekins. Whoever chooses this one is a fat biffa. Once I've put the crumbles together, I then dusted with the demerrera sugar; trying to get a nice colour on top and hoping for a few caramel-y blobs to form.

And from here into the oven @200c for 20 minutes. I know crumble normally takes longer - but then crumbles are normally bigger.
I wasn't happy though, they were clearly cooked. But they hadn't browned on top like I'd hoped. So after the one bottom left winked at me, I popped them under he grill for a moment.


And got distracted.....

Until the smoke alaram went off. Well, at least it's working. It was kind of the effect I was after, just turned up to 11.
As for my single un-burnt crumble. It was lovely. The crumble mix was good and the soft brown sugar had formed a few chewy lumps just like M&S's.
The ginger though was a bit too much. Next time, I'll drop to a teaspoon instead of a tablespoon's worth. Also because the lazy ginger is matchsticked it was a bit all-or-nothing - I'd chop it further next time around, so the flavours blend together a little better.


Oh, as for the burnt ones: I did of course just scrape the burnt off and eat them anyway.