Rhubarb and ginger crumble fool

Double layer of fool and crumble only for the truly gluttonous.

There was quite a bit of local rhubarb about in the market when I was in town the other day. The non-wintery conditions meant that making a rhubarb crumble with it didn't seem entirely appropriate, so instead I decided on a fool. Fool is essentially some fruit, sugar and cream, and so is one of the simplest desserts ever.
I had about half a kilo of trimmed rhubarb, cut into chunky pieces. This was cooked with a couple of tablespoons of water, three 'balls' of stem ginger (finely chopped), and about three tablespoons of brown sugar. The amount of sugar you'll need will depend on how sweet or sharp your rhubarb is, so have a taste as it softens and adjust as required. Simmer the rhubarb over a low heat until it's completely cooked and softened. This should take about twenty to thirty minutes.

In the meantime whisk up around 300ml of double cream into soft peaks, with a tablespoon of icing sugar. Once the rhubarb has completely cooled stir it into the cream, and your fool is done! I thought I'd still add a crumble element though, so I used the same method as this rhubarb crumble ice cream to cook some crumble topping separately. The one minor amendment was to add a couple of teaspoons of ground ginger to the mix. Once the crumble had been cooked and cooled, it just needed to be sprinkled over the fool (a ready made alternative would be to serve some ginger snaps on the side). My favourite April fool to date.

NB This fool can also be turned into an ice cream by using the rhubarb crumble ice cream method.

Southwold eating

I've had a hankering to go to the seaside for a while now, and took advantage of last weekend's lovely weather to head down to Southwold on the Suffolk coast. I'd never been before but had heard a lot of talk about beach huts. Luckily due to the power of Twitter (thanks to @EssexEating) and a blog post by Around Britain with a Paunch I also had some top food tips, which proved to be excellent- I do love the internet.

Southwold is a little bit of a trek from my patch of East Anglia but it was definitely worth it. This little town does indeed have a lot of beach huts but it also has a lot of lovely beach, quaint little streets with funny houses and lots of places to have a cream tea.

During a wander around we stopped off at Munchies for an ice cream. My strawberry ice cream was some of the nicest that I've had- lovely and fruity but with a rich creaminess and not too sweet. The male companion person had a toffee crunch cone that also disappeared very rapidly, and there was serious consideration about going back for seconds.

An ice cream-powered stroll along the beach all the way to the harbour followed, with sand dunes gradually evolving into families crabbing from the rocks, and eventually lots of little boats moored in the estury. As you walk further into the harbour area there are various ramshackle huts that would normally be selling fresh fish, though as we were there quite late on a Sunday afternoon they were mainly closed or on the verge of shutting. Luckily we were just in time to join the end of the queue for the fish and chip shop (phew) and as we were waiting felt a little smug as various latecomers tried to get in only to leave disppointed when they realised it had already shut.

Mrs T's was run by possibly the poshest ever fish and chip shop proprietor that I have ever encountered. A request from one customer for a battered sausage was given a disdainful response, as she pointed out (quite reasonably actually) that they specialised in seafood. There was no sign of any battered fish sitting around here and everything seemed to be freshly cooked. This did involve a bit of waiting around, taking of tickets and checking of numbers but the final outcome was definitely worth it. My plaice came in an amazingly crisp batter that required some concerted effort to break into. The fish inside was soft and moist, and there was barely a trace of grease present. The chips were nice if unremarkable but the portion size was just right, which meant that the walk back along the beach was an enjoyable one rather then an over-stuffed waddle.

I would happily spend a lot more time in Southwold as I'm sure there are many more foodie spots and other things to see and do. In fact I'd be happy just to go back and laze about on the beach (and eat more ice cream and fish and chips of course).

Blackberrry pancake brunch (or pudding)

The male companion person is very keen on American-style pancakes, and I've found that these are ideal for a Sunday brunch. They are much thicker than our regular British pancakes and need to smothered in copious amounts of maple syrup and an optional hunk of butter. I initally used this BBC recipe but now I know what the consistency of the batter should be (quite thick), I can judge it by eye so precise amounts of each ingredient don't appear to be too crucial.

As we've currently got a glut of blackberries I thought I'd try and add a fruit element to these pancakes. Being too lazy to make a compote, I just added a couple of generous handfuls of blackberries to the batter and squished them a bit with the back of a fork. Once they were in the pan the fruit burst a bit more but without disintegrating completely. Cold vanilla ice cream was the perfect contrast to the hot fruit pancakes (and pah to anyone who doesn't think it's appropriate to have ice cream for brunch).