Cherry Crumble

Hope the summer is finding you happy, eating loads of ice-cream, and planning, or maybe enjoying a good summer break. Or returning from one, and planning for the next one?. Isn't planning for vacation as enjoyable as the vacation itself? I love dreaming about and looking forward to a nice break every few months - it's just what sometimes keeps me sane! Come back from one, and immediately look at the calender for the next available opportunity for another mini- break :-)

This past weekend we had planned for a weekend break to Colmar, but it didn't happen thanks to the rainy Saturday. Instead, we just headed for the very colourful farmer's market later in the day, and loaded up on cherries, blueberries, melons and honey mangoes and ...

I used up most of the cherries in a delicious crumble. Fruit crumble really is such an easy, quick to put together dessert, so versatile, and you can rarely go wrong with it. This cherry crumble is more about the fresh fruit rather than the butter and cream. Just the perfect dessert for a beautiful summer evening.

INGREDIENTS (per ramekin)

• 7-8 pitted cherries

For the streusel topping/crumble

• 2 tablespoons rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon of all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons slivered/chopped almonds
• 1 tablespoon demerara or turbinado sugar. Light brown sugar would also be fine.
• a pinch of salt
• a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• a tablespoon of cold butter
• softened butter for greasing the cups

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Generously butter each ramekin
2. Preheat the oven to 400F
3. throw in the pitted cherries in the ramekin
4. In a bowl, add in all the ingredients for the crumble except butter. Mix them slightly with your hands
5. Now add in the cold butter and combine with the dry ingredients with your fingers. The crumble should look and feel like ..well..a crumble..or coarse bread crumbs.
6. Place this crumb mixture on top of the fruit in each ramekin
7. Bake for about 25 minutes

Some of the characteristics and serving suggestions

• I love desserts, but I don't like them to be too sweet. When it comes to a crumble, made with summer fruits, eaten on a hot day, I much prefer the dish to be light and fruity, slightly tart served with a good quality vanilla bean ice-cream, rather than a rich and heavy cobbler-esque dessert.
• If you are making this dish on a cold winter day, eating it warm straight out of the oven, with a dollop of whipped cream would be perfect.
• But on a hot and sunny beautiful summer's say - one of the few that we in Zurich are blessed with this season, I say reduce the sugar, chill the crumble and eat with a scoop of ice cream. Or better, have it for breakfast the next day - that's what we did, and loved it :)

The slight tartness and juiciness of the cherries, the crumbly texture of the streusel topping, and the smoothness and coolness of the ice-cream - now that is a beautiful and refreshing dish that is very satisfying as well!

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Birchermüesli

Nothing can be as quintessential a swiss breakfast as a bowl of hearty Birchermüesli or simply Muesli. And those not all too familiar with the 'guttural CH' or the "gargled R" sounds of German, here is a bit of pronunciation course. Bir-kher-Mew-slee. And trust me, if you are not German, or Swiss German, you will NOT be able to pronounce it the way people here do. I was once told by a Swiss friend, that I should gargle and practice if I want to perfect it. Needless to say, I gave up right there!
For all you followers of the Quick Quaker Oats(or whatever it's called), this is my humble request to you. Just try this one out for once. It is almost as easy as getting stuff straight out of a box - just that you may need to open too many boxes :). And you need to pre-plan a bit.
This recipe was originally created by the physician Bircher-Benner, but has been now adapted to suit different tastes and lifestyles.



The kind that I made is just one variation. The traditional one uses apples - you could use whatever fruits you like or are in season. Also the choice of nuts is upto you. The important thing is to soak the oats the night before - or at least a couple of hours before serving. So here is how I made it.
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup orange juice
- 1/2 cup yoghurt
- Some chopped and/or flaked almonds
- handful of raisins
- 1 cup blackberries
Soak the oats in juice and yoghurt and refrigerate it overnight.
Before serving, add in a few blackberries per serving in a bowl and crush them. Mix it with the oats-yoghurt mixture until you get the colour you like. Now add in the nuts, raisins, and more blackberries if you like.
There you have a healthy, nutritious and easy breakfast.

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Healthy whole wheat and oatmeal cookies

It is only on weekends that you can have the luxury of having warm, freshly baked, straight from the oven cookies with your evening tea(or coffee). I was in the mood for some chocolate chip ones, but they usually demand such a lot of butter that sometimes just the thought of pouring that amount of butter puts me off. Surely I would happily eat it up of I were to see it with my lunch at Subway or with a Starbucks'-so-called-espresso ;)

So I made up a batch of cookies. And guess the ingredients. Let me give you some clues. Its healthy. Its light. I'd happily eat them up for breakfast. All of'em.



So heres how its made. And this is not my recipe. I took it from the Whole Grain gourmet website with a few changes(http://wholegraingourmet.com/recipes/43-cookies/75-healthy-steel-cut-oatmeal-cookies.html).

1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup Steel cut Oats. You could add more but I didnt want it to be too oat-y.
1/4 tspn baking soda,
1 tspn baking powder
a pinch of salt, a tablespoon vanilla sugar(or vanilla essence if you have), a tablespoon cinnamon, 1/2 tablespoon cardamom powder.
a few chopped almonds. Walnuts would be better I guess, but I didnt have them on hand
Half a bar of 70% chocolate that I chopped up.

Then it is as simple as mixing it all up, and dropping my the tablespoon fulls on the cookie sheet. Bake it on 375 for 15 minutes. Share