eat your greens! eat your beans!: gluten free pear and dark chocolate crumble.

Crumble of any sort is very popular in my house. I love stewed fruit and my boyfriend thinks that the crumble-y topping is pretty much the best thing ever. I've recently started converting all of our favourite sweet treats to a healthier, gluten free option. It's worked well sometimes, and... not so well others. There's been a lot of rock cupcakes, but things are improving.
About a month or so ago, I went to my pal Sarah's house for dinner. She had recently gone gluten free and I said I'd make a desert - Sarah loves apple crumble, so I said I'd make it happen. It happened alright, it happened in a most amazing way. This time I've modified the recipe again to include Buerre Bosc Pears (in season right now!) and to jazz it up a bit, dark chocolate. I'm also pretty obsessed with including seeds in my baking at the moment, so I've added some seeds to the topping to healthy it up a bit!

8 Buerre Bosc Pears
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon arrowroot powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1 block (i know! you can use as little or as much as you like, think of the antioxidants!) of lindt dark chocolate

1 cup quinoa flakes
1 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup buckwheat four
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
3 tablespoon rice milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
pinch teaspoon salt
handful of sesame seeds
handful of pepitas/pumpkin seeds

Directions
Preheat oven to about 180C

Chop up pears, I like it a bit chunky but whatever suits you. Dissolve the arrowroot in water and set aside. Place pears in a baking dish of your choice and add the sugar and spice, mix it all in and pour the arrowroot mix over the top. After you have done this, smash up the chocolate and place all over the top. It should look a bit like this:

Pretty impressive huh? To prepare the topping, in a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add oil, rice milk, and vanilla. I like to use my hands here to really combine the wet and dry ingredients, you might also need a little more coconut oil. I like to use coconut oil for two reasons, the first being that I like the subtle coconut taste it adds to my baking. Secondly, it's stable at high temperatures, which means it won't oxidize and become a nasty oil.