Berry crumble and homemade custard

It’s the season for all things fruit, and this delicious homemade summer berry crumble with an easy to make oat crumble topping is the perfect pudding for a mid-week treat or weekend celebration.

What makes it even better is the delicious homemade vanilla custard that is luxurious, sweet and perfect to serve with any pudding.

Notes from The Patisserie

I love warming cosy puddings such as sticky toffee pudding, or even bread and butter pudding, but crumble?! It tickles my fancy almost daily. I love going out for dinner and there is nearly always some sort of crumble on the dessert menu. The main question though, do you have yours with custard too? I am a custard for crumble kinda gal, but it does go wonderfully with cream and ice cream as well.

This particular berry crumble is designed to be incredibly easy to make for anyone of any skill level, but also be packed full of flavour. Purposely using frozen fruit to make it cheaper and more accessible (you can use the cheapest of frozen for this) and also a delicious and easy to make homemade crumble.

I have often used a custard in my photos or videos and as I have had well over a thousand requests for my homemade custard recipe, I thought I would throw that in here too. It’s thick, vanilla flecked and utterly delicious.

Baking the best crumble

I have always thought that crumble is such a famous pudding, but also so underrated at the same time. Find the full recipe and method in the recipe card below

Making the fruit mixture

• Fruit – I decided to use frozen berries because then they are packed full of flavour no matter what time of year you are making this recipe. Fresh fruit can be used, but for timing of the crumble topping, I would recommend freezing the fresh fruit still so that the timings work best. You can use any berries you want – I bought a ‘berry mix’.
• Sugar – despite how sweet berries may be for some people, you need to add a little sugar to cut through the sharpness of the fruit, and also help create a jammy consistency for the juice. I just use simple caster sugar, but granulated sugar can also be used.
• Lemons – the added zest of lemons add’s the perfect hit of contrast for the sweet sharpness of baking with berries
• Flour – adding plain flour helps thicken the sauce that is naturally created whilst the fruit is baking – you can swap this to cornflour is you want.

Making a homemade crumble mixture

You can always buy a shop bought crumble mixture, but as it’s SO easy to make at home I would always recommend this instead as it uses standard cupboard ingredients and has no additives.

• Oats – you can use any oat you want – I tend to use rolled oats as that is what I typically have in my cupboard
• Flour – plain flour is best as you do not want any raising agents from self raising flour. This helps create the bulk of the crumble
• Sugar – I preferred to use brown sugar as I like the flavour it brings, but you can swap it to caster sugar to match the fruit mixture if you want instead
• Butter – in my opinion it is best to use block butter and not a spread or margarine as you want the butter to be cold and hard to help crumble the mixture together

Making the best homemade custard

I have been a custard fan for years and years, and it feels like a staple in my diet. As a kid, classically, I loved it. I used to just eat custard and jam as a treat – and now I am older, it’s often my choice to pour over a pudding or cake.

While you can buy very decent custard, from the cheapest end of the scale to the fancy vanilla bean flecked custards, you can also make it yourself at home and it’s likely easier than you think.

• Egg – to make the best custard you need to use JUST egg yolks. The egg whites can be saved for something else such as meringue if you wanted, but the best custard is just yolk.
• Sugar – I use caster sugar for the added sweetness and texture of custard
• Flour – I prefer to use cornflour for this, as I find it better guarantee’s the thickness that I want, but plain flour can work in place – just make sure to cook out the custard properly to thicken it.
• Milk – I always recommend full-fat products in baking for the best flavour, texture and result, so I use whole milk. Semi skimmed does work, but it can be thinner in texture
• Vanilla – optional, but the addition of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste is the perfect flavour hit for the custard

FAQS

Storage and freezing

This delicious dessert is best served fresh and warm – to make sure that the crumble stays crunchy. You can reheat the crumble in the oven for 10-15 minutes at about 180ºc. You can also microwave leftovers in 30 second intervals until hot.

The custard can last for 3-4 days in the fridge, once cooled fully. If making to cool and use another day, make sure to cover the top of the custard with clingfilm, making sure it’s touching the surface of the custard to prevent a skin forming.

The crumble and custard can be frozen – but I do think fresh is best. Both will last for 3+ months in the freezer. Make sure to thaw in the fridge.

Something else delicious in mind?

This berry crumble will 100% satisfy your fruity or custard cravings, but if not, here are some other delicious bakes that you could make instead:

• Summer berry cake – this delicious recipe is the cake version of this crumble, full of the delicious summer berries that you love
• Peach blueberry cake – a delicious one layer sponge that is super easy to bake, perfect for the spring/summer months, and ideal with custard
• Peach crumble – a different version of fruity crumble – made with tinned peaches. Another easy and accessible recipe that is perfect for the whole year
• Rhubarb crumble cake – A tasty traybake cake version of a crumble, perfect served for a picnic, for a bake sale, or a dessert served with custard.