The Red Witches Crumble

A yummy raspberry and strawberry crumble gently spiced with ginger and cinnamon – perfect treat for these dark evenings.
This contains oats which don’t really agree with me but they work so well here I decided I had to use them. I’d like to find a good all-nut version of this crumble – because I love this. I can’t get over how good strawberries and raspberries are together. I’d imagined the tastes would clash because they’re so distinct but actually they each enhance the flavour of the other.
I discovered this by accident when I went to make a mixed berry crumble and found I only had frozen strawberries and raspberries. I was desperate for a pudding so I went ahead and made it. They do need quite a lot of sugar or sweetness added and the crumble needs more flavour as well otherwise it gets overpowered. But there was the makings of something really good there.
So I loved the taste of strawberries and raspberries together so I kept making a crumble with them but I kept on having to add some sweetness after it was cooked because I never seemed to add enough at the start – and the crumble was just blah. Then one evening I was low on sugar and had a jar of stem ginger in syrup so I sprinkled over a little sugar and then used the syrup from the jar to sweeten them. It made all the difference – but then I wanted to use up the stem ginger…
Anyway that is how this came about and it’s a little bit of magic!

Ingredients
- 450g frozen strawberries
- 450g frozen raspberries
- stem ginger in syrup
- 1 heaped tablespoon caster sugar
- fistful flaked almonds
- 75g ground almonds
- 75g porridge oats
- 75g salted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 3 level dessertspoons soft dark brown sugar
- cream for pouring
Instructions
- Place the strawberries and raspberries in a suitably sized oven dish. I used an 11" x 8" dish. Sprinkle over the caster sugar.
- Grate 3 or 4 pieces of stem ginger and scatter it on top of the fruit. Then spoon in some syrup over all the fruit - it takes about 4 or 5 tablespoons.
- Melt the butter in a saucepan or in a bowl in the microwave. If using the microwave just give it 30 seconds,, take out and stir, and repeat until all is melted. Stir the brown sugar, cinnamon and ground ginger into the melted butter.
- Mix the oat, ground almonds and flaked almond in a bowl and then stir in the melted butter mix into this. Top the fruit with this crumble. Bake at 180 C for 40 - 60 minutes or until a fork meets no resistance from the fruit layer.
Notes
Enjoy with a nice cuppa and a big splash of cream.







