02 Jun Dr. Sheldon’s Recipes – Chocolate Oat Crumble
This recipe comes from the fantastic food blog– Smitten Kitchen. If you haven’t seen it before, check it out. As noted below, she adapted it from Nigel Slater’s cookbook Eat. This is the first dessert “recipe of the week”, but I like it because it has fruit, dark chocolate, oats and no flour. Also, while she says it feeds about 3-4 people, in our house there was enough for 6 (portion control) with only 3 tablespoons of butter, 3 of sugar. It can be eaten plain, over ice cream (low fat if you like) or yoghurt.
Chocolate Oat Crumble
Adapted from the version in Nigel Slater’s Eat, and a few others.
Note: This is a sloshy crumble, because there’s no thickener in the base. We loved the fruit syrup over ice cream, but you can easily stir 1 to 2 tablespoons cornstarch before fruit syrup over ice cream, but you can easily stir 1 to 2 tablespoons cornstarch before baking it to give it more body.
Serves 3, maybe 4 if with ice cream
Topping
1/3 cup (40 grams or 1 1/2 ounces) chopped dark chocolate
1/2 cup (50 grams) rolled oats
1/4 cup maple syrup
Pinch of salt
Filling
3 tablespoons (40 grams) butter
3 tablespoons (40 grams) sugar
2 pears, peeled, halved, cored and diced into small chunks (I used firm D’Anjous;
cooking times for other varieties will vary)
1 cup (115 grams or 4 ounces) raspberries
Heat oven to 350°F(180°C).
In a small dish, combine chocolate, oats, maple syrup and salt and set aside. In a
small/medium ovenproof skillet (mine was 8-inch/1-quart), melt butter over medium
heat. Add sugar and cook together, stirring, until it becomes golden at the edges. Add
pear chunks and cook in this caramel-y syrup for 5 to 8 minutes, until slightly softened
or half-cooked. (Bosc pears always take longer for me; ripe Bartletts, less.) Scatter
raspberries over top. Sprinkle with chocolate-oat mixture. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes,
until fruit is soft and the oats crisp.