Friday, March 07, 2014

Treat me: Coconut Crumble

I've never understood why people get cross when recipe writers in magazines or newspapers advocate the use of new or 'fancy' ingredients. Why? Surely, if you love food, then shouldn't you love hearing about new things, and figuring out things you can do with them? Maybe I'm strange like that.

Coconut Sugar, Coconut Flour, Coconut Oil And Desiccated Coconut Image

Anyway, ever since I discovered coconut sugar I've been going a bit mad with it. Partly this is to stop myself eating it out of the jar or sprinkled on my yoghurt, but mostly because it's fun. And delicious! And even if all that stuff about it being super-good for you isn't wholly true, we can't be saints all the time, can we?

Fruit Crumble Vegan Gluten-Free Photo Credit: Lucy Corry/The Kitchenmaid

Coconut Crumble
I could tell you that I love this for its so-hot-right-now coconutty-ness, but the reason I am really hooked on it is that it takes less than 20 minutes to make - and cook. That means you can even make it for breakfast and still not be late for work. Do you need any more encouragement? Ok then, it's also vegan and gluten-free. Happy now?

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/4 - 1/2 cup coconut sugar
about 2 cups fruit - I favour frozen berries for the speed factor, but you could use any cooked fruit. Poached pears would be nice...

Heat the oven to 200C. Grease a shallow sided pie dish or similar with a bit of coconut oil, then tip in the fruit. Stir the coconut flour, sugar and desiccated coconut together, then mash in the coconut oil until it is reasonably evenly distributed. Taste - if you have a very sweet tooth you may want to up the sugar to 1/2 a cup. Tip this mixture evenly on top of the fruit, then put the dish in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, until the fruit is hot and the crumble is golden brown. Serve with a generous dollop of whipped coconut cream or Greek yoghurt. Serves four.

Have a great weekend everyone x

6 comments:

  1. I am always up for trying new things.I'm a big fan of coconut milk and oil for eating, cooking, putting on my hands and face...I haven't tried coconut sugar yet but someone gave me a bar of raw dark chocolate, I'd forgotten about it until I was on a chocolate hunt yesterday and found it. It was made by 'vanoffe" and absolutely delicious not at all bitter. I read the ingredients and noticed that it contained coconut sugar. I try to avoid sugar if possible, maple syrup is so expensive in the uk,so this sounds like another option. I must find some. oh and try this out. 20 minutes is good.
    Have an awesome weekend
    dx

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  2. I agree that it is nice to try new things but I also have my limits and some trends appeal to me more than others - coconut sugar and coconut flour interest me but the coconut oil is less my thing (though I am coming round to it) Love this gf crumble topping - need some nice cool weather to make crumbles - maybe with some plums as the stone fruit season comes to an end

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  3. I love crumbles and I also love trying new things. I've never heard of coconut sugar though but I'm sure it's lovely.

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  4. Looking forward to adding this to my crumble repertoir. I also use frozen berries for speed crumbling. I've been experimenting with coconut sugar and oil recently in baking and muesli bars. I've discovered you can whisk a tbs of coconut oil into a hot milk drink (chia or hot chocolate) and it gives it a lush mouth feel and passable foam. It's not greasy or nasty at all, promise. A good way to get the daily dose if you're not into spreading it on toast -- which also is surprisingly good.

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  5. I love trying new things and discovering new ingredients. Coconut sugar sounds fab... I need to look into that. Coconut crumble sounds ah-mazing! Love it.

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  6. I adore coconut but haven't ever added it to crumble - what a great idea!

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