Winter warmers

Question of the week: as the weather's getting colder, do you have a favourite Winter-warmer type recipe you'd like to share?

"Autumn may mean cobblers and pie to you, but to me it means crumbles - apple crumble, rhubarb crumble, blackberry crumble - it's all good.

Pre-heat your over to 180c, and plan for a very light main course!

The topping is very simple

Take 200g plain flour and 100g porridge oats (or 300g plain flour, if you don't have oats to hand), add to a bowl with 175g brown sugar, and mix.

Cut 200g butter into rough cubes, and give them a super-quick blast in the microwave to soften, but not melt them - maybe 10, 20 seconds?

Add to the flour, oat and sugar mixture, and rub in - pinch the mixture between your finger tips, rubbing your fingers together to mix the butter into the dry ingredients. When main you're done, your mixture will look like breadcrumbs.

For the filling, you want some kind of fruit - roughly 500g of it, that you peel, core, chop, or - if you're using berries - just pour straight into an oven-proof bowl. You want the end result to cook down some, so eating apples and pears work better than cooking pears. Mix in any spices that sound good to you, and maybe a little sugar if you think it'll be too tart without.

It's a little late in the year for rhubarb, unless you buy it tinned, but rhubarb is good with ginger, as are pears. Apples and cinnamon are natural partners, as are apples and blackberry, or apple and blueberry. Plums are great with a couple of cloves and a splash of port or red wine.

So, you now have a bowl of breadcrumb-like topping, and an oven proof dish filled about half way up with fruit. Just shake your topping over the fruit, using the back of a spoon to spread it around more or less evenly, and press it down gently.

Pop in the oven for 40 - 50 minutes, until the top is starting to brown, and the fruit is bubbling up around the edges.

Traditionally, crumble is served with custard, but it's also good plain, with ice cream, or with a scoop of Greek yoghurt."
- Miss Alice

* Photo by Amanda Rudkin, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.