Crumble Calzone

April 30, 2014 8:44 AM

Ok, so, y'know Crumble?, the popular post world war II british desert? Can you suggest a method (with limited kitchen equipment) for making a Calzone (The popular folded up pizza) which is stewed fruit on the inside and crumble on the outside.

I've found some references to such a thing, but no actual recipe.
Be creative.

posted by Just this guy, y'know to Food & Drink (23 answers total)

Would streusel on top of the calzone do it for you? Look up fruit calzone for recipes and just add the streusel at the end.
posted by travelwithcats at 8:50 AM on April 30, 2014

How about making something similar to a turnover, with streusel on top, adhered before cooking with some delicious melted butter?
posted by banannafish at 8:53 AM on April 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Hmmm.. I think you are going to have some issues with the crust being, um, too "crumbly", to hold the fruit if you are going for an exact replica. Given limited kitchen equipment, I would use purchased pie dough to make the calzone and sprinkle the top with struesel, like travelwithcats suggests. If you want to make this from scratch look for "hand pie" recipes.
posted by sarajane at 8:53 AM on April 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

Crumble and calzone have very different doughs, crumble is a pastry with butter and calzone is more of a bread with olive oil. Do you want to keep the calzone dough and just have fruit in it with streusel on top, or do you not want the calzone dough at all?

A turnover might work. I might even wrap your fruit in phyllo--different, but tasty.
posted by epanalepsis at 8:54 AM on April 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

The major problem I see with doing something like that is that the crumble is very loose and well, crumbly, which means it won't fold nicely the way pie dough or pizza dough would. Trying to fold fruit into a crumble would just get you a sticky mess ...or a casserole, which crumble essentially is.

If you like the texture, I recommend something like using a dough for strudel or hand pies, with a nice oat, sugar, etc. topping instead. Maybe dip the pastry dough in melted butter and get the crumble to "stick" on it that way?
posted by PearlRose at 8:55 AM on April 30, 2014

So basically like an apple turnover but with crumble instead of pastry? The obvious problem is going to be the intrinsic crumbly nature of the pudding. I think it would be tempted to try making it in ramekins with a layer of (modified) crumble base, then packing mix up the side walls, loading the fruit then topping with more mix, but this would be more like a crumble pie than a calzone perhaps. Key to meeting your goals will be how to make the mixture hang together a bit better, which I would think might mean using something in the mixture that would let it be a bit more likely to stick to itself. So go beyond the basic sugar and fat crumble mix and find something which improves these qualities. Adding oats is a standard addition in some recipes, can anyone think of something that might improve structuring further, perhaps with threads in to form more of a substrate?
posted by biffa at 8:57 AM on April 30, 2014

Adding oats is a standard addition in some recipes, can anyone think of something that might improve structuring further, perhaps with threads in to form more of a substrate?

The problem here is that "structure" means gluten most of the time. Gluten = chewy, which = foldable, but also not what you're after with crumble. Crumble is literally crumbly, and not chewy--I think this is the reason you've never had this particular dessert. Without gluten strands, you'll need an external force to hold your dessert together, like a ramekin. Or make a turnover and press streusel into the dough before you bake it.
posted by epanalepsis at 9:14 AM on April 30, 2014

Recipes for ideas (cannot personally vouch for the flavor):

Pumpkin Hand Pie with Pecan Streusel

Blueberry Brown Betty in muffin tins

Pinwheel Apple Cobbler

You could also try making it more like Hamantaschen with a pastry outer dough and fill the center opening w/ crumble. Rugelach also comes to mind as a potential alternative structure.
posted by melissasaurus at 9:17 AM on April 30, 2014

Hmm... were you asked to join in some sort of cooking challenge?

I've made a rustic apple galette (basically open-faced apple pie) ~3 years ago, and I sometimes topped it off with crumble. Your question reminded me of that and I started googling... and I found this recipe.

Not sure if it's at the level of creativity you're looking for, though... but hope it helps!
posted by Tsukushi at 9:28 AM on April 30, 2014

I am totally not clear on what you're looking for here! To me, the defining feature of a calzone is that it's completely encased in bread/pizza dough; the defining feature of a crumble is that it's crustless, or at a minimum has no top crust. These seem mutually exclusive to me?

Is it that you want fruit filling in a freeform crust (no dish) with crumble topping? If so, I think a galette with crumble topping (per Tsukushi above) is what you want. Do you want to be able to pick it up in your hand? I feel like we're all suggesting different things based on what we think you are looking for...
posted by mskyle at 9:43 AM on April 30, 2014

My apple crisp topping is basically oats, brown sugar, butter, and flour. And cinnamon. The end result is a delicious buttery crispy almost oatmeal cookie-y crisp on top of the apples.

So, I would use an oatmeal cookie dough recipe as your crust. Plunk some down, put in apples (or whatever, best if they were maybe pre-cooked), put more dough on top. Feel free to add additional "crumble" on top to give you more of that crunch you're looking for. Oatmeal cookies are often drop cookies, so this is going to have to be a bit more free form. You're not going to be able to get much of the filling in.
posted by PuppetMcSockerson at 10:05 AM on April 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

You could make a clafoutis and put a crumble top on that. It's basically a freeform tart, openfaced, and you could sprinkle the crumble top on it. But crumble on top of pastry isn't going to add much, even if you press the bits into the dough.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:59 AM on April 30, 2014

This can't be done. Raw crumble topping has the texture of breadcrumbs, how are you going to fold that around anything? It's a lumpy powder.

Maybe make a sweet pastry tart, the recipe is basically crumble with an egg to bind the dry ingredients. Depending on your pastry skills your sweet pastry may well be pretty crumbly anyway!
posted by tinkletown at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2014

Easy: lay the crumble mix out on a baking tray in a circle, bake for 10 minutes at about 180ºC, pour on some reduced juice from your fruit (syrupy enough that it won't soak fully through the crumble mix), bake until it's toffee-caramelly enough (say 20 minutes at 220ºC), then put the fruit filling in the middle of the crumbalzone, fold and bake until sealed.

At least, that's what I'd try.
posted by ambrosen at 11:32 AM on April 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Could you make a turnover, as some other people have suggested, but with a fairly large cutout on the top that you fill with crumble? That way the fruit is held in by the crust, but you'll still get the crumble texture in each bite. Crumble on its own is just kind of... crumbs, so I think that even if you got the cold filling to be fairly solid and rolled it in the crumbs to get your coating, once you baked it you'd just end up with a kind of messy crumby melted fruity pile, not anything you could pick up and eat.

Also my inner Holden Caulfield is super excited that I just got to legitimately use the word "crumby".
posted by augustimagination at 11:44 AM on April 30, 2014

Something that might be close to what you want is possible - I've eaten far too many of them. I think it's called a "crumble slice", and resembles a thick flapjack (the UK sort) made up of crumble with a thin layer of fruit in the middle. It's about 4cm thick and around 5cm x 7cm square when sliced up.

The fruit filling is quite dry, like a thick jam. The crumble layers are slightly soft and a bit stickier than normal, mostly flour with a few oats, and they do tend to crumble when eaten. It's not the sturdiest of desserts. It would hold together as a square chunk but if it was larger the weight would make it break apart.
posted by BinaryApe at 1:28 PM on April 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think clarifying the calzone dough crust question might help, but here is something that might work: Corn Flake Crumbles. Again, the calzone part is confusing, but it looks like you could shape these into calzone-y shapes if that's what you are looking for.

Otherwise, it sounds like you are trying to make a fruit hand pie with bread dough? Or a hand pie with a crumb topping?
posted by Room 641-A at 6:53 PM on April 30, 2014

Adding more to the idea of a gallette - SmittenKitchen does a nice one that looks like the open-faced calzone mentioned above. You could totally put a crumble topping on that.
posted by CathyG at 7:08 PM on April 30, 2014

Pressed crumble + layer of stewed fruit + more crumble = bars. Search fruitofinterest bars on Google for recipes.
posted by maryr at 8:37 PM on April 30, 2014

(Otherwise, I think what you are describing is Dutch apple pie)
posted by maryr at 8:39 PM on April 30, 2014

Awesome crumble-like bar recipe. Sub your fruit for the jam.
posted by sarajane at 5:30 AM on May 1, 2014

You're not going to be able to substitute crumble for the calzone dough. It just won't work; it'll fall apart.

So I'm going to go on the assumption that what you're looking for is a self-contained crumble.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut I think this, maybe, might just work:

You'll need silicone moulds for this. Think individual-sized ones. I'd suggest hemispheres for easiness of removal.

Make your crumble slightly denser than you normally would. Pack a layer into your moulds, and par-bake--don't fully finish it but don't leave it raw, either. Now, freeze until rock solid.

Make your fruit filling. Spoon it into your frozen moulds, leaving enough room to add a good layer of crumble on top. Make sure the top forms a seal with the crumble underneath.

Now re-bake until the top crumble is done. Allow a few seconds to cool, and turn out the moulds. You should, I think, then have essentially what you are looking for, even if the shape is a little bit off. Using a thickening agent (cornstarch, xanthan) in the fruit filling should help with cohesiveness.

This is all kind of wild-ass guessing; I've never tried to make a dessert like that professionally.

Another option would be to bake crumble 'shells' like tart shells, then fill and top with separate pieces. I can't make my brain come up with a way for you to get the calzone shape though.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:16 AM on May 1, 2014 [1 favorite]

Not sure where you're willing to make compromises --- you're going to have to make some --- but you could also use crumble flavoured ingredients to make something like a graham cracker crust. I'd use store bought oatmeal cookies, fairly crispy ones, or you could crumble them up and put them in a low oven to dry out, then add brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe some finely chopped walnuts or oats, and melted butter. Assemble as you would a cheesecake crust, in individual ramekins. You could then blind bake, fill and top with streusel.
posted by Diablevert at 10:22 AM on May 1, 2014