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Rhubarb, Pear & Hazelnut Crumbles

Individual fruity puddings with a twist - try mixing chopped nuts with your crumble topping for extra crunch

By bbcgoodfood · From Open Recipes · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and hazelnut share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and 15 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep15 min
Cook45 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Melt the 25g butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Cut the pears and rhubarb into chunks, then add them to the pan with the soft light brown sugar, ½ tsp ground cinnamon and ¼ tsp ground cloves. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring, until the fruit softens slightly.

  3. Spoon the fruit and its juices into an ovenproof dish about 20cm (8 inches) across and spread it evenly.

  4. Put the self-raising flour, cold diced butter and 1 tsp ground cinnamon in a bowl. Rub with your fingertips until it looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

  5. Stir in the demerara sugar. Roughly chop the roasted hazelnuts, mix them in, and scatter the topping evenly over the fruit.

  6. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until the topping is golden and the fruit is bubbling. Rest for 10 minutes, then serve warm with vanilla ice cream or double cream.

By bbcgoodfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Rhubarb + hazelnuttop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together15 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Pear + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together334 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Cinnamon + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pear, rhubarb, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, hazelnut):

  1. Cardamombetter flavor fit
  2. Nutmegabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pear, rhubarb, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, hazelnut. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).