Deconstructed Rhubarb Crumble

I'm not sure what has got into the rhubarb plants this week but, having picked over half a kilo from my two plants last Sunday, I ended up picking another 625g this Sunday. This is definitely a personal best. However, with the days getting shorter and cooler, I imagine this could be the final crop, or at least the final crop from which anything meaningful can be created.

Yet again I was casting around for an interesting recipe and came across a label I'd saved from a bottle of sloe gin given to me a couple of Christmases ago. This 'serving suggestion' was to bake rhubarb in the gin, which sounded like a match made in heaven. So, I chopped the rhubarb into 1-2cm pieces and put them in a roasting dish. I then mixed 80g caster sugar with 7 tablespoons of sloe gin and a couple of tablespoons of water before pouring this over the rhubarb. I popped this in the oven (heated to 180C, gas mark 4) for 40 minutes until the fruit was tender, basting it every 10-15 minutes.

Wondering aloud what may be nice served with this baked rhubarb my friend suggested some nutty biscuits that my Mum had made a while back. Fortunately I have this recipe in my collection so I knocked up a batch whilst the rhubarb was baking. Helpfully, both recipes are baked at same temperature.

These are officially Almond and Pecan Biscuits but I didn't have any pecans so substituted these for pistachios. I'm sure the recipe would work well with any sort of nut.  To make these cream 150g softened unsalted butter with 100g caster sugar, then mix in 100g ground almonds, 100g gram flour, 60g chopped pecans (or other nuts of your choice), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract (or vanilla bean paste), and 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger. Form the mixture into 12 equal sized balls and place on two baking trays lined with non-stick parchment. Flatten the dough balls slightly before baking in the oven for about 15 minutes.

Allow to rest on the trays for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely. If you find the oven a bit full with the rhubarb too, you can always cook the biscuits in two batches. This also saves on baking parchment as well as washing up.

The rhubarb recipe says that it's best served slightly warm, and with a very healthy lunch of salad consumed, my friend and I couldn't help but try the rhubarb with a still-slightly-warm biscuit on the side. The result was divine and resembled a somewhat deconstructed fruit crumble, particularly if you let your biscuit soak up a bit of the rhubarb 'juice'.

There will now be no stopping me deploying both recipes when I next make a rhubarb crumble. I think briefly blitzing all the biscuit recipe dry ingredients with cold butter to make a crumb texture and using this to top the baked rhubarb and sloe gin mixture would be the best rhubarb crumble ever.

Thank goodness I have been freezing raw rhubarb as well as cooking with it straight from the garden. All I need now is some more sloe gin, since I used up my very last drop on this recipe. Fortunately I helped my parents pick sloes last weekend so perhaps if I offer to supply the rhubarb they will offer a few tablespoons of their yet-to-be-made gin?