Vegan Fruit Crumble Recipe

Stewed plums and tinned apple slices make up the base for this rustic, deliciously autumnal and very easy vegan crumble.  The topping is biscuity and crunchy because I hate loose, powdery crumble! 

To stew the plums, half them and remove the stone.  Put into a pan over a low heat with half a cup of water. Add sugar to taste and pop in a cinnamon stick.  Cook gently until it is broken down into a puree consistency. If it is too wet, pour off some of the liquid and reduce down. Don't forget to remove the cinnamon stick!

Put the cooked plums in an oven proof dish and sprinkle over sugar to taste.  I also added a tin of unsweetened sliced apples to add a different texture and flavour to the fruit base. You can use any seasonal fruits so it's a good way to use up anything lurking in the fruit bowl!

Crumble Recipe

4 oz wholemeal plain flour

2 oz dairy-free margarine (use butter if you don't need it to be vegan)

2 oz soft brown sugar

1 oz oats

3 tablespoons water

handful of pumpkin seeds

Rub together the fat and flour.

Stir in the oats and sugar.

Mix through the water to make the crumble mix a bit clumpy!

Spread over the prepared fruit.

Sprinkle over seeds.

Cook at GM 5 for 20-25 minutes.

Serve with Swedish Glace dairy free ice-cream for a delicious vegan dessert.

Sweet Plum Bun Recipe #GBBO

This week on the Great British Bake Off, saw the contestants creating bakes using sweet dough.  Given that I have so many plums that need using, I thought I'd come up with a way of combining using them up with my entry into this week's Great Bloggers Bake Off hosted by Helen and Jenny.

Sweet Plum Bun Recipe

Ingredients

400g strong white flour

7g sachet fast yeast

25g caster sugar

1 oz melted butter

9 fl oz warm water

400g plums stoned and sliced

3 oz light brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3 tblspns icing sugar

water to mix

Method

Put the flour, yeast and sugar in a bowl.

Mix in melted butter and warm water to make a dough. Add more flour if necessary.

Knead for 5 minutes then leave in a warm place to rise for 20 mins.

Meanwhile stone and slice plums and mix with sugar and cinnamon.

Turn out dough and roll into a rectangle 12 x 10".

Spread over the sugared fruit.

Roll up tightly like a swiss roll.

Slice thickly and place buns onto a prepared baking tray.

Cover and leave to rise for a further 20 minutes.

Cook in an oven at GM6 for about 20-25 minutes.

Once cooked, leave to cool then drizzle the glace icing over the top.

The buns were rather good with the flavoursome, tart, juicy plums and sweet, glace icing contrasting wonderfully within the sweet dough.  I think my proving probably was a bit lacking which meant I failed to get a really light, airy texture (ooh look at me going all Mary Berry on myself!!) so my buns were a little bit heavier than they could have been but still tasted good.  I think I'll stick to making plum cakes in future as they are so much quicker and easier to make, but it was interesting to try something new.