Honey crumble – a dairy-free version of the fruit pudding

Today’s honey was part of an attempt to go dairy-free. One of my favourite puddings is fruit crumble (what my American friends call crisp. But then what I call crisps they call chips and what I call chips are what they call French fries… That’s why it’s great to have a shared language) – sort of like a fruit pie for people who can’t be bothered to work and roll out the pastry (see my honey apple pie post for my pastry incompetence and how honey saved me). The standard way of making crumble is dependent on plenty of butter to hold the topping together but if you’re trying to cut down on fats, or if you or your guests are lactose-intolerant then honey offers an alternative way of making this pudding.

I made apple crumble, blending the oat and flour topping with a local honey

Ingredients:

1 cooking apple, grated

1 cup oats (you can experiment with other breakfast cereal)

2/3 cup plain flour

6 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. Place fruit in oven-proof dish with spice to taste (e.g. cinnamon/cloves/ginger. I used allspice).

Pour flour and oats into a bowl and rub honey into the mixture. Crumble this over the fruit. Bake for about 30 minutes, when fruit should be soft and topping browned.

For more recipes and adventures in honey harvesting and honey tasting, see my Travels in Blood and Honey; becoming a beekeeper in Kosovo, published last year with Signal Books