Autumnal Baking: Peach, Apple & Rhubarb Crumble

The last few weekends, Liam's Mum has given us a big bag of home grown rhubarb so the obvious choice  to us was to make a Rhubarb Crumble!  I initially browsed for some other recipes to use it in, and came across a Rhubarb Upside Down Cake which really took my fancy, but Liam wasn't a fan.  Even though he doesn't really do puddings - he loves the classics, and now it's coming to Autumn, a hot treat seems reasonable!

I didn't realise just how easy it was to make a crumble, so I thought I'd share with you how I did it!  I added in some extra fruit, because our smoothie maker broke last week so we've had a lot more fruit left at the end of the week - the first time I made one, I added in victoria plums, and this week I added in a couple of apples, and some flat peaches!

I'll point out now - I'm no food photographer, and to be honest, I hate it when you follow a recipe and it turns out looking nothing like the photo from the recipe.  Here you've got a proper home cooked recipe, complete with photos of how mine turned out from a novice baker!  (I'll stop with my baking excuses now!)

You will need:
     SIX STICKS OF RHUBARB
     TWO APPLES
     FOUR FLAT PEACHES
     SIX TABLESPOONS OF CASTER SUGAR
     FOUR TABLESPOONS OF WATER
     110g BUTTER
     110g DEMERARA SUGAR
     180g PLAIN FLOUR

You want to start by pre-heating your oven to 180, and then start chopping up your fruit.  I chopped my rhubarb to around two inches in length, and was sure to peel my peaches and apples.  After throwing everything into my crumble dish, I sprinkled six tablespoons of caster sugar and four tablespoons of water across my fruit.  The recipe I was following did ask for eight tablespoons of caster sugar, but it was way too sweet the first time we tried it - especially with all the sugar from the fruit!  I will probably try lowering the amount of sugar again next time just to see if it's even needed at all!  I roasted my fruit for around ten minutes to soften them up a bit.

Whilst your fruit is roasting, you can start on your crumble topping!  Add your butter, demerara sugar and flour to a bowl and start massaging it through your fingers until you have that crumble texture and all of your ingredients have been mixed.   By the time you've done that, it should be almost time to take your fruit from the oven.  After your ten minutes are up, sprinkle your crumble topping over the top and bake for around forty minutes or until the topping has changed to a golden brown!

Well...I love puddings, so I really enjoyed this; I served mine with some hot custard!  I'd definitely make another, and next time I might try an apple crumble with a bit of cinnamon in!  Leave a comment below if you've got any recipes for some Autumnal cooking as I'm starting to feel very cosy, and have been craving all sorts of traditional home cooked meals!

What's your favourite Autumnal dessert?

Psychedelic Space Cake

It was Liam's birthday on Friday 4th, so I spent a couple of days last week baking and decorating his birthday cake!  I don't make him a cake every year, because he doesn't have a need for cake in the same way that I do.  But seeing as we went camping over the weekend with our friends for his birthday, I thought I'd put in a bit of effort and make him something everyone can enjoy to get into a real birthday mood!

He recently bought himself a telescope, and has a huge interest in space and Physics, so I decided to make his cake space themed!  I wasn't sure how exactly I was going to do it, but I luckily managed to spot a hemisphere cake tin which bakes cakes into half spheres.  It made for a perfect moon shape!  I got mine from Lakeland, but you can find them on Amazon and on eBay - they're all pretty similar in price, I tried my best to find a bargain, but cake tins aren't the cheapest!  I also decided on baking some cake pops, which would be little aliens to accompany my moon!

Liam has pointed out to me in the past the super bright rainbow cakes, and said how cool they were, but I never got round to making one for him.  Gel food colourings bring out the brightest colours, so I tracked down some Wilton gel dyes which I bought from Amazon.  For the inside of the cake, I chose to use the neon set which gave an amazing vibrancy and such unusual colours.  The purple took a lot more dye than the others to stop it looking grey, so I think if I made another, I probably would bypass the purple!  I also bought another set of twelve colours, which I used on my cake pops!  These were so good, and maybe even better and brighter than the neons!  You can see the inside of my cake pops on my Instagram feed!

I just used a standard victoria sponge recipe, filled with strawberry jam and butter cream.  Because I picked the large hemisphere tin, I had to use a six egg recipe to make sure it filled the pan.  I dyed some of the icing the bright neons, and made a little spaceman to sit on the cake.  I also cut out some stars with a little star cutter and sprinkled on some gold and white glitter to make it really spacey.

I finished my cake pops with a coating of white chocolate, and some neon sugar!  I attempted to draw some faces with some of those icing pens but they just kind of melted down...don't really know what happened there.  Admittedly, the aliens didn't turn out as pristine and perfect as I had hoped but oh well!  For all we know, aliens might look exactly like these do...

We went camping on the Friday night through until Sunday, which was lots of fun even though field mice managed to break in and eat our breakfast buns and our Sunday lay in was cut short because major winds snapped our tent...  But despite it all, it was a very fun weekend!  Even if we did in the end forget to take the cake altogether...more for us!

So...what do you think?  Am I a master baker?