Recipe: WanderSups cuts the ribbon on crumble season

“That first mouthful is like a two-pronged love letter: a fond goodbye to summer and a warm welcome to winter.” Hannah Gregory, Velvet’s resident recipe writer, shares her favourite autumnal crumble

There are few simpler or greater pleasures in life than the first crumble of autumn. Soft stewed fruit, buttery crumble, warm custard or cool cream. As smells of vanilla and oats fill the kitchen, the molten dish is plucked from the oven, lava-like fruit coulis bubbling up at the sides of the dish. It is a true test of strength having to wait for the pud to cool down to an appropriate temperature for it to be inserted into your mouth and, no matter how many blows land on the spoon, the sharp intake of breath and wince as the hot fruit fills your mouth will always remain present because you just couldn’t wait.

It’s always worth it though. That first mouthful is like a two-pronged love letter: a fond goodbye to summer and a warm welcome to winter. It bids adieu to garden parties, barbecues and jugs of Pimm’s and signifies the season ahead, littered with roast dinners, roaring fires and full-bodied red wine. The thought of winter months isn’t always the most joyous - shorter days, longer nights, cold winds and lashing rains - but we can lean into the fact we always have a crumble for comfort.

I love the flavour combinations in this dish - the sweet pears and vanilla, the sharp blackberries, the floral bergamot notes of the Earl Grey, the warming oats. It truly is a great seasonal dish and every time I make it I think of the Brambly Hedge book series, imagining the hedgerow mice gathering their fruits for winter.

You could of course make this any time of year, but there is something so rewarding about welcoming in a season with the fruit it yields (extra points all round if you can pick your own pears and berries).

Earl Grey, pear and blackberry crumble
Serves: 4

What you need:
For the filling:

● 4 pears (ideally Comice but Conference will do)

● 8 Earl Grey tea bags

● 700ml water

● 125g golden caster sugar plus 2 tbsp

● 1 vanilla pod (split in half lengthways)

● 350g blackberries

● 1 tbsp cornflour

For the crumble topping:

● 100g plain flour

● 50g rolled oats

● 100g unsalted butter (cubed)

● 50g golden caster sugar

How you do it:

1. Combine the sugar and water in a pan, add the tea bags and vanilla pod. Bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for half an hour.

2. Peel, core and quarter the pears.

3. Remove the teabags from the liquid, add the pears and place back on the heat until the liquid is simmering again.

4. Allow the pears to cool in the cooking liquid. (You can store the pears in the liquid until you need to use them.)

5. For the crumble topping, preheat the oven to 180°C.

6. Put the flour, oats, butter and sugar in a bowl and gently rub with your fingers until a crumble texture forms.

7. Sprinkle over a lined baking tray and bake for 15 minutes until just golden - you may need to toss it about a bit half-way through.

8. Add your blackberries, cornflour and a couple of spoonfuls of the pear poaching liquid to a saucepan.

9. Sprinkle over two tablespoons of caster sugar and heat gently.

10. Stir gently allowing the berries to begin to collapse and the sauce to thicken - you want some berries to keep their shape so don’t be too vigorous here.

11. If the mix needs more liquid, add the poaching liquid as required.

12. Remove the pears from the poaching liquid and cut into bite-sized pieces.

13. Add to the pan with the berries and stir so everything is combined.

14. Transfer the fruit mix to an appropriate dish, sprinkle over the crumble topping and bake for 15 minutes until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden.

15. Serve with custard, cream or ice cream.

A former BBC MasterChef quarter finalist, Hannah runs supper club, pop-up and private chef service WanderSups - “serving meals created with love, inspired by journeys around the world, dished up on home turf” - and is the brains behind TACOR, the new neighbourhood taqueria in Bury St Edmunds. To find out more follow @WanderSups and/or @tacor_taqueria or visit wandersups.com.