Sunday, July 12, 2009

Perfumed Pineapple Crumble (Crumble d'Ananas à la Vanille)



We had leftovers for lunch. Fruit from yesterday's 90th birthday party for Nana. The last of the chicken salad with pecan-raisin bread. And some more American brie.

My husband set that up while I prepared a Perfumed Pineapple Crumble for his cousin's baby shower this afternoon.

I adore this cookbook that Jessica got me from France. I had some pineapple from the farmers market so I thought I'd give the pineapple crumble a go. Jessica, when she cooks from one of these French cookbooks, translates the entire recipe and does the conversions, writing it all on the cookbook before she starts.

I don't.

I read over it, look up unfamiliar ingredients (like cassonade, I didn't know that was brown sugar) and then bring the laptop with me for conversions and last minute questions for wordreference.com. Most of the time, I start preparing it and realize I hadn't even read the whole recipe.

So, Crumble d'Ananas à la Vanille called for:
100 g de buerre mou + 1 noix pour le moule
150 g de sucre cassonade + 3 cuillierées à soupe pour le moule
1 ananas
4 cuillerées à café d'extrait de vanille liquide ou en poudre
150 g de farine

So, my conversion calculator suggested that 85 grams equals a cup...
1 cup butter, plus some to grease the pan
About 2 cups brown sugar, plus three "soup spoons" for the pan
1 pineapple
4 "coffee spoons" of vanilla extract (in liquid or powder. I would love to have vanilla powder.)
2 cups flour (okay, I ended up doubling this because my crumbs were really wet and sticky)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter the pan and sprinkle (saupoudre- isn't that a great verb?) with three tablespoons of brown sugar.

Cut the pineapple into pieces. "Perfume" them with two teaspoons of vanilla and mix well. Arrange in the pan.

In a mixing bowl, mix the remaining sugar, the flour and the butter (sliced and soft) with the tips of your fingers to make "sandy" crumbs.

Add two teaspoons of vanilla and mix.

Cover the pineapple and bake for about 45 minutes.

Serve lukewarm or cold with vanilla ice cream.

1 comment:

  1. Angel, what kind of converter are you using? Did you read it correct? I've just looked up butter on 2 and they come in significantly less than your one cup. No wonder you're crubs were so wet. (I use a stick, then add more if I need it.) Ingredient does matter.

    On this one, my favorite for borrowing restaurant recipies www.recipegoldmine.com/kitchart/kitchart2.html if you scroll down to BUTTER/MARGARINE it says 3/8 cup.

    All Recipies, another fave allrecipes.com/HowTo/Cup-to-Gram-Conversions/Details.aspx says 1/3 cup butter is 76 grams.

    Another one is a converter www.gourmetsleuth.com/gram_calc.htm when I do 85 grams to cups it comes out as .37 cups

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