Peach Crumble

Ingredients

6 ripe yellow peaches
12 Amaretti biscuits
1 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 ½ cups rolled oats
1 tsp ground ginger
½ cup coarse coconut
½ cup crushed macadamia nuts
150g soft butter
150 ml orange juice

Method

Lightly butter a baking dish with 15g of the butter. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Drop in the peaches. Simmer for 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon to a bowl of cold water. Slip off the skins. Cut the peaches in half and remove stone. Place cut side up in a baking dish. Pour in orange juice.

In a stainless steel bowl mix biscuits, flour, sugar, oats, ginger, coconut, macadamia nuts with the butter. Spoon the dry mixture over peaches and place in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes till golden brown on top. Remove and divide evenly between 6 bowls. Serve with cream or mascarpone and your favourite icecream.

NOTES from DAVID PUGH

Peaches, fresh or poached, were my favorite fruit when I was growing up. Those fruit that you would watch ripen on the tree and wait until you could smell the sweet perfume just after Christmas. They have a relatively short season and surprisingly we have some beautiful fruit in both yellow and white coming out of the Queensland Granite Belt.

CHEF TIPS

When buying peaches, smell and squeeze them. When ripe and ready to eat they should be soft to the touch and have a heady perfume. There are 2 varieties – Clingstone and freestone. The Golden Queen freestone is my favourite

White peaches discolour quickly so cut and use straight away.