It’s just a bit too February for fresh raspberries. They may look enticingly ripe and ready, but don’t be fooled: they’re all style and no substance at this time of year. And, at roughly £13/kg, they’re a great way to hemorrhage cash. At that price, you could buy two pairs of bespoke Gregg’s Sausage Roll Earrings and have change enough to purchase five full-size tubes of smarties. It’s up to you, but to enjoy the best fresh raspberries in the world, you have to wait til summer, move to the east coast of Scotland and go bonkers at a pick-your-own.
However, if you don’t want to wait til June, there is another way. The best value, yummiest option – bar moving to Fife – exists eternally in the freezer section of Lidl. For £1.89 you can purchase a 500g sack of gorgeous little raspberries, picked and frozen at their best, just ready for you to ping at unsuspecting flatmates. This year-round availability is excellent news for crumble societies worldwide, and even better news for a lassie all out of breakfast options on a lazy Sunday.
This is exactly what I did this morning to make a squelchingly fragrant, jammy little crumble in under half an hour.
You’ll need:
Half a bag of frozen raspberries (250-300g)
A bag of caster sugar (no, you’re not using all of it, you wazzock.)
110g of butter, or something that might, probably, perhaps resemble butter if you squint (around half a block, either way)
220g of flour (around 2 cups)
Any chopped nuts/seeds you like. This is breakfast, after all.
Cinnamon/nutmeg if you can be arsed
A scatting of oats if you want rustic *vibes*.
Method
Tip your frozen raspberries into an average sized cake tin. They should be 2-3 layers deep and clank pleasingly against the metal as you pour them in.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Put the cake tin full of raspberries in the oven while it’s prewarming as to defrost them without the splattering aggression of the microwavé.
While your oven is heating up, steal your flatmate’s blender and weigh the flour and butter into it. Blend it on a pulse setting if that’s a thing, or in short bursts if it’s not. Shake the blender loads while you’re doing it as you don’t want to overwork the mix. You’re looking for a sandy texture which most cookbooks describe as fine breadcrumbs but which I prefer to call ‘butter graupel’ as per my avalanche training. If you don’t have the luxury of a flatmate with a blender, rub the butter into the flour using your fingertips and think about how much easier this would be if you used electricity.
Transfer this mix into a bowl and add as much sugar as you see fit – I used around 60g (1/4 of a coffee mug) because it’s breakfast and I don’t want to overwhelm my pancreas this early. Stir in any nuts, seeds, cinnamon etc you want to here. I used pecans and leftover almonds that I forgot to scatter over some morrocan dish I massacred the other day. Add some oats if you like.
Remove the warmed raspberries from the preheated oven and sprinkle over them as much sugar as you feel necessary. I’m a tart girl myself, so don’t need much sweetening up before I’m absolutely ready to go. I used about a tablespoon and a half but you can always use more.
Now tip your crumble mix over the top of the raspberries and lightly press it down with your fingers. You’ll have around a third too much crumble mix most likely, so put the rest in the freezer for another day.
Bake the crumble in the oven for 20 minutes.
Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to swap the oven racks around as soon as you see a badly chopped almond going too dark on the surface of the crumble. You will drop the bloody thing onto its leading edge, lose a third of the topping and end up with burnt bits all over the bottom of the oven. Despite this moment of disaster, I still had a delicious crumble. You, not repeating my mistake, will simply have more of it.
Once the top’s all golden brown and the raspberries are making their bubbly debut around the edges, it’s done. Let it cool for a wee bit and then serve it either by itself or with some nice yoghurt.
Voila. A lazy Sunday breakfast for very little money and just an inkling of your time and brainpower.
P.S. This serves 4 lol hahah – good luck finding fridge space.
Student Cuisine for the Gloomy Teen 