Mulling It Over

I must say thank you to Delicious magazine for the inspiration behind last nights recipe creation, mulled wine fruit crumble with clotted cream. I reckon I must be in full crumble mode as it’s only a few days since I made an autumn fruit crumble. I’m putting it down to the cold weather, I enjoy the cooler months and love spending the grey days pottering around the kitchen but it does rather unfortunately give me a craving for comfort food.

As per my normal crumble making routine I used a 50/50 combination of flour and oats to rub in with some butter and sugar to make my topping. Along with making the crumble top oaty I added some roasted, roughly chopped cobnuts. Not only do the cobnuts add a little crunch but they impart a sweetness that is almost buttery in taste, giving a little more vibrance and freshness to the dessert.

A Kentish cobnut is a type of hazelnut. Most of the hazelnuts grown in Britain are of the named variety Kentish Cob, which was introduced in the early 19th century, but growers are now beginning to plant other varieties too. However, they all taste relatively similar – more similar than different varieties of apple for example.

Whilst it would be possible to simply use mulled wine to simmer the fruits, I decided to use red wine which I infused with some organic mulling spices from Riverford. These spiced sachets are made by the award-winning Heron Valley using a blend of organic cinnamon, ground ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Although it is really, even for me, to mention Christmas, that is exactly what the house smelt like while the fruit simmered away in its heady broth.  The notion of Christmas being further influenced by my inclusion of cranberries, the cranberry is the Christmas fruit for me, cranberry jam, dried cranberries and nuts, cranberry juice in cocktails; but not the dreaded jars of cranberry sauce with turkey, why I do not know, but I can’t abide it.

I’d be perfectly happy to serve the simmered fruits as they are with maybe a little splash of cream or a shortcake biscuit as they’re so deep and flavoursome. That would be a good idea if a slightly lighter pudding was required. As it was I wanted pure, unadulterated, comfort and the crumble topping was a prerequisite for that.

Clotted cream is my favourite crumble serving partner but double cream or custard also work really well. The choice is yours.

Mulled Wine Crumble

• 6 apples, peeled cored and sliced
• 6 plums, halved and stone removed
• 1 mango, peeled,stone removed and diced
• 3 tablespoons dried cranberries
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 300ml red wine
• 1 sachet mulling spice
• 75g plain flour
• 75g medium oatmeal
• 75g butter, diced
• 50g demerara sugar
• 50g cobnuts, shelled and roughly chopped

1. Melt the tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and when foaming add the prepared fruits (except the mango), toss in the butter until golden and add the wine and mulling spice sachet. Allow to simmer until the fruit is just tender.
2. Remove from the heat and add the mango, stir to combine. Remove the fruit to a baking dish, reserving the liquid and sachet and return the saucepan to the heat.
3. Reduce the sauce by half, remove the mulling spice sachet and discard, pour the sauce over the fruits.
4. Preheat the oven to 180C or the equivalent.
5. Make the topping, put the flour, oats and butter in a bowl and rub together using your fingertips until you have the consistency of bread crumbs, stir in the sugar and cobnuts.
6. Sprinkle the topping over the fruits, mounding it up a little towards the centre.
7. Bake for about 25 minutes or until crisp and golden.