In the days before the small people came on the scene then there were more options in the evenings. A lot more options, movies, wine-bars, beer gardens, comedy, impromptu trips to Paris on the Eurostar, even (and I can hardly bring myself to write the word because I feel like such an oldster saying it these days) ‘clubbing’. I used to take that stuff for granted. These days, things are a little different. But, there’s still dessert.

Yesterday I attempted a grain-free / sugar free crumble. I was kind of surprised – it was perfectly sweet enough and actually rather lovely. For the fruit I used chopped rhubarb, apple, gooseberries and strawberries (straight from the freezer.. my thinking was that adding a few strawberries would sweeten it enough to skip the usual spoon of sugar I would add to the fruit). I also put a little water in with fruit.

For the topping I just rubbed a little (maybe 30g) chopped butter with some chopped dates, ground almonds (maybe a cup , maybe two.. things were rather vague yesterday) a spoonful of ground seeds (sunflower, chia, flax, sesame, pumpkin.. I have these in the fridge anyway – they weren’t essential, you could leave them out or just something else). The chopped dates gave the topping sweetness and crunch. Baked it for quite a while ..maybe almost an hour around 160 (sorry, failed to time it again.. )

Please note, the ramekin is just for the photo – my bowl was way bigger than this…. with some yogurt (ice-cream would also have been good)… and if it really just sounds a little too wholesome then you can secretly poke a chunk of dark chocolate into the midst of it while it’s hot and the chocolate will melt into a little puddle in the middle.. it’s not exactly as exciting as an impromptu trip to Paris, but it’s a pretty good end to the day.

This post is an entry for Sweet NZ , hosted this month by www.timeforalittlesomething.com