Gluten Free Crumble and Custard

This is a British classic, and by using different fruits you can completely alter this recipe to suit your tastes. This is my go to crumble topping recipe for any gluten free crumble, and serving it with homemade custard makes all the difference.

Ingredients

For the crumble

150g gluten free plain flour*

100g soft brown sugar

100g ground almonds

25g porridge oats (double check that they’re gluten free)

25g flaked almonds for sprinkling (optional)

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp cinnamon

150g unsalted butter

*you can substitute this with regular plain flour if you're not making this recipe gluten free

For the filling

600g soft fruit of your choice, roughly chopped

1 tsp cornflour

Juice of 1/2 lemon

25g soft brown sugar sugar

*I used 300g strawberries (I chopped the larger ones in half and kept the smaller ones whole) and 300g plums that I stoned and roughly chopped

For the custard *

1 pint / 570ml full fat milk

50 ml single cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 egg yolks

1 tbsp cornflour

50g golden caster sugar

*if you don’t want to make your own custard you could buy a pre-made carton from the supermarket, or enjoy the crumble with a lovely rich vanilla ice cream or cream instead.

Method

- Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/350F/Gas 4.

- In a large mixing bowl toss together all of the filling ingredients and set to one side.

- In another bowl add all of the crumble ingredients, besides the flaked almonds if you’re using them. Rub it all together until it forms a bread crumb like consistency (if you’ve made crumble before you’ll realise that the consistency isn’t as fine or as dry as regular crumble, this is because the almonds provide a lot more moisture).

- Pour the fruit mixture into a large ovenproof dish (I used a 24 x 20cm pyrex dish), and gently shake to level out the fruit.

- Tip the crumble mix over the top of the fruit, and gently push it into the corners so that the fruit is completely covered (don’t push down too hard as this will lose the crumbly texture).

- Sprinkle the flaked almonds evenly over the top of and place in the centre of the oven for 30-35 minutes, until until the crumble is golden brown.

- Remove the crumble from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes.

- Meanwhile, heat the milk, cream and vanilla essence together over a medium heat until just before boiling (small bubbles will begin to appear on the surface).

- In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour together until smooth.

- Pour the heated milk over the egg mixture and stir well.

- Strain the mixture into a clean saucepan and heat for a few minutes, stirring continuously, until you have a lovely thick custard. I like to leave it to cool slightly for a few minutes and serve it straight away, but you could leave it to cool completely and store it in the fridge for a couple of days.