Apple and Pear Crumble with Cheese

This is a recipe I stumbled across recently, but I’m already a big fan.

Initially, I was looking for a way to use up some pears and apples I had that were about to go off, which seems to be a pretty common thing for me lately. I was also intrigued by the cheese aspect of the topping. I love crumbles of any kind, mainly because of the oatmeal topping, but I would never have thought of adding cheese. The cheese didn’t really add any flavor to the crumble, but did provide a nice creaminess to the whole crumble, that you wouldn’t normally find.

When it comes to crumbles, I hate when the ratio of fruit to topping is off. The fruit is good, but so is the topping. You need to have a balance. With most crumbles I feel like you need to double the topping to get a good balance going, but this recipe brought the perfect ratio.

The recipe is from a British site and uses a British cheese, which is great if you are living in the UK. If you are living in California however, Wensleydale, is a bit more difficult to find in these parts. If only we had Waitrose! I struck out at both Trader Joe’s and a local fancy pants grocery store, so I headed to Whole Foods and had a very in depth conversation with the cheesemonger about the merits of wensleydale (ps. how do I become a cheesemonger?). The cheesemonger was quite apologetic about the lack of selection when it came to wensleydale, but in the end I totally lucked out. They only had one wensleydale in stock, but it was one with cranberries in it! I was pretty excited about adding both cheese and cranberries to the crumble. Like I said, the cheese provided a really nice creaminess to the whole crumble and the cranberries gave it a nice tart bite, which complemented the whole dessert perfectly.

Apple and Pear Crumble with Cheese (adapted from Good Food Channel)

For the topping

• 50 g/scant 1/2 cup plain flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose Baking Mix)
• 25 g/1/4 cup rolled oats (I used Bob’s Red Mill GF Rolled Oats)
• 85 g/1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 50 g/1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts
• 50 g/1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 50 g/2 ounces wensleydale cheese, crumbled

For the filling

• 50 g/1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 2 large apples, peeled, cored, chopped
• 2 large pears, peeled, cored, chopped
• 25g/2 tablespoons sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C/gas 5.
2. To make the topping, put the flour, oats, sugar and hazelnuts into a large bowl.
3. Rub in the butter until the mixture has an even crumbly texture. Stir in the cheese.
4. To make the filling, melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the apples and pears.
5. Stir in the sugar and cook for about 5 minutes, until golden brown and tender.
6. Spoon the fruit into a pie dish.
7. Sprinkle over the crumble topping and bake for 25 minutes until the topping is golden brown. Serve with custard, cream, or ice cream.