Rhubarb, Pink Peppercorn and Pomegranate Crumble

Serves 6

This is a Guest Recipe from Ravinder Bhogal featured in The Financial Times

We always have a wonderful crop of rhubarb in our garden and it can be a challenge to know what to do with them.   For puddings, one automatically thinks apple and rhubarb - but this recipe is just a little bit different!

As we have so many apples this year, I decided to add two large Bramley apples and it was nice to have a bit of extra fruit in the pudding.

The amounts given for the topping turned out to be extremely generous and so I only need to use half of it and the rest was put into an airtight container, labelled and put into the freezer for later use.

This pudding is extremely good and using the alternative sugars and flours, was not too sweet either!

Ingredients

750g rhubarb, cut into 1 cm chunks

2 large Bramley apples, peeled, cored and sliced

Maple syrup

Juice and zest of two oranges

2 tablespoons of roughly crushed pink peppercorns

Arils (Seeds) from One Pomegranate

For the Crumble Topping

150g plain flour (I used Brown Rice Flour)

150g brown sugar or coconut sugar

150g cold butter

150g ground almonds

75g rolled oats

A pinch of salt

AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO.....

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/gas 6.
   
   
2. Place the rhubarb into a roasting pan, drizzle with some maple syrup and bake for 10 - 12 minutes.    As soon as the rhubarb has softened, remove immediately from the oven.
   
3. Put the apple slices, a little Maple Syryup,  orange juice, zest and peppercorns in a saucepan over a medium heat and simmer for about ten minutes or until tender.   
   
   
4. Stir in the pomegranate arils and pour into a baking dish together with the rhubarb.
   
   
5. For the crumble, rub together the flour, sugar  and butter with your fingertips until you have a rough crumble texture.  You can also use a food processor and simply whizz all the ingredients!
   
   
6. Fold in the ground almonds, rolled oats and a pinch of salt.
   
   
7. Then gently rub again for a few seconds.
   
   
8. This recipe makes a generous amount of topping, so scatter half of the crumble mixture over the rhubarb mix and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until golden and bubbling.    The rest of the crumble can be put into an airtight container and frozen for future use.
   
   
9. Serve with custard or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.