Tonight I’ve been cooking crumbles for various uses over the next couple of days. The challenge was that, since I was cooking in three identical dishes, unless you cook a crumble to the point the filling oozes through the top, it is hard to tell what is inside. One of my crumbles was rhubarb, one was apple and one was apple and rhubarb. How could I tell them apart?

My solution was to enhance the toppings of two of them. Apple-only got some sliced up bits of dehydrated apple. By the time it gets reheated and served they will be pretty crispy but also visually distinct. How to represent rhubarb though? I didn’t have any dehydrated rhubarb but I did still have some beetroot powder. I’ve mixed a spoonful of that with the top layer of the crumble topping and, as expected, it has turned out a distinctive pink colour. It remains to be seen whether I get any beetroot taste but, based on my experience with using it in bread, I think the colour should be stronger than the flavour.

I won’t get to find out until Saturday though – it is the rhubarb and apple that is due to be served tomorrow.