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.

Rhubarb crumble ice cream

There are many reasons why the interweb is brilliant, and this is one of them. I would not have come across this recipe for rhubarb crumble ice cream if it wasn't for the Food Stories blog. Though it's a Delia creation it was seeing this ice cream appear on the blogosphere that prompted me to try it, and with a few handy hints via Twitter (thanks to aforkfulofspaghetti) I can declare it a huge success!

Click through using the links above for the full recipe but the beauty of this ice cream is that it is so simple. Cook rhubarb, mix with cream, add in crumble, make cold=done. As Helen Food Stories mentions I think a reduction in sugar when cooking the rhubarb is beneficial. And I should probably have reduced it even more than I did to really heighten the contrast between sweet crumble, cold cream and sharp rhubarb.

I don't have an ice cream maker so once the cooked rhubarb had cooled and been mixed with the cream, I was committed to a schedule of visits to the freezer and churning. Churning it every hour or so worked really well, though did get increasingly difficult as the ice cream become more frozen and harder to mix. Due to circumstances I churned over the course of about six hours and then left the ice cream overnight in the freezer. The next morning a full upper body work-out was required to undertake the final churn and mixing in the crumble. It then went back in the freezer for a couple of hours and was put in the fridge around half an hour before we ate it. It was definitely worth all the effort though, as the final product was delicious and ice crystal free!

Ideally serve on hot summer's day while wondering if it is worth investing in a proper ice cream maker....