Daddy Long Legs loves rhubarb, so when I spotted them at the shop the other day I thought I would treat him to a yummy dessert in the form of a crumble. Now that Caspian has started falling asleep earlier (fingers crossed he’ll stick to 7 o’clock going forward!) we have sort of reclaimed our evenings and have started cooking more elaborate meals again. We, of course, still end up watching our sleeping boy on the monitor and as any new cooing parent find his grunts and sleepy stretching makes for wonderful entertainment. How life has changed!

Even before I moved to the UK I loved a good crumble, and despite it being traditionally more of a winter treat by adding some juicy strawberries and serving with vanilla ice cream instead of warm custard it suited the beautiful sunny early summer’s day we had yesterday. And I picked some lovely, fresh mint in the garden to use for decorations.

Despite being a quintessential English dish I naturally had to add a few Danish touches – British inspired with a Nordic twist this time. One of course being Danish butter!

The other is the Scandinavian vaniljesukker (translation: vanilla sugar) which is used a lot at Christmas time in various cookies and desserts. It is basically vanilla pods mixed with icing sugar. It is great for enhancing the flavours of the fruit.

So here’s what you need for this delicious Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumble: 

Serves 4 people

Prep time: 15 min.

Cooking time: 35-40 min.

4 medium sized rhubarb

1 tray of small to medium sized strawberries

2 heaped spoons of golden caster sugar

1 heaped teaspoon of vaniljesukker (vanilla sugar)

50 g of butter (soft, room temperature, chopped)

100 g plain flour

Vanilla ice cream

Fresh mint

Preheat the oven to 180 C / gas mark 6.

Cut the rhubarb into 2 cm chunks and put in an oven dish. Sprinkle a teaspoon of caster sugar over and put in the oven, while you prep the strawberries and the crumble topping.

Cut the larger of the strawberries in halves and add those and the smaller whole ones to the rhubarb.

Mix the butter, golden caster sugar, vaniljesukker and flour in a bowl. Spoon loosely over the fruit and cook in the oven for 35-40 mins. I like to give it 1 minute under the grill at the end to make the topping extra crispy!

Serve with vanilla ice cream, fresh strawberries and mint.

Velbekomme! (as we say in Danish)

Daddy Long Legs loved it! And went on to google the health benefits of rhubarb of which there are plenty. I’m not so sure what the sugar and butter does, but delicious it was – and sometime you deserve a treat!

The neighbour’s cat seemed to think so too as she came to help out during the shoot in the sunshine.

What’s your favorite summer dessert?

*this post was originally published 22nd of May 2015