Winter puddings

He Who Can Fix Anything has a sweet tooth of note. Some years ago, he went for a routine blood test and the doctor was horrified at the results, told him he was a borderline diabetic and prescribed tablets which he now takes every day to keep diabetes at bay. Some time later, he confessed that he had eaten a whole packet of fudge just before the blood test. You would think that he would have had a follow-up test done, after some serious no-fudge fasting, but no, that’s never going to happen. He’s a man.

I have suggested that if he followed my eating plan, which is basically a diabetic diet even though I’m not diabetic, he could dispense (!) with the prescription drugs, but no, that’s never going to happen. He’s a man.

His favourite food is hot puddings. If I would make them all through summer, he would eat them every night. But I refuse to go to all that trouble in the heat, and so, at the first sign of rain, his parting shot in the morning will be: So it’s apple crumble tonight?

I get the blender out of the cupboard and put all the pieces together, not having used it since last winter. I duly throw in the flour, oats, sugar and butter and give it a whizz. Nothing happens. Curses! The butter must be too high up, I poke it down with a spatula and give it another whizz. Still nothing. Poke it down again. But then I notice that something is not right. Ah ha! I haven’t put in the blade. Really out of practice with this bit of kitchen machinery.

Eventually get the whizzing under way and in no time have a congealed blob which is so way past a crumble as to be a rock bun. So I throw in more oats, more flour and off we go again. By the time I get the consistency right, I have enough for three apple crumbles, which is good news in the long run. I stow the balance of the crumble in a container in the fridge where it will keep for weeks and slice apples, sultanas, cinnamon and cloves into a baking dish followed by a good layer of crumble and pop it in the oven.

That will keep him going for two nights, as long as the rest of us don’t tuck in too!