Rhubarb and raspberry cobbler recipe (sugar-free option possible with stevia)

My neighbour gave me some rhubarb he'd grown in his garden, so I decided to combine it with my raspberries and make a cobbler. I was just about to go on holiday when he brought the rhubarb round, so I decided to freeze it and I also froze the raspberries. So my version of the recipe used frozen fruit, but you could also use fresh fruit, it would just take a bit less time to cook down than mine did.

I decided to use stevia granules instead of sugar because I try to avoid refined sugar. It worked fine in terms of how it baked and the texture, but it definitely didn't taste the same as sugar. I think sugar would have been nicer. We both noticed that it seemed to taste better and less different the next day. I can't say whether that's because we were more used to it, because I served it cold or because stevia's taste changes over time when combined with fruit. One possible option I might try in future is to make the fruit part the say before, then bake it and the cobbler dough the next day.

I've noticed that different stevia granule types differ in how much stevia they say is equivalent to a teaspoon of sugar. The one I used said that a third of a teaspoon of the stevia granules was equivalent to a teaspoon of sugar, so I divided the quantity of sugar I would have put in by 3. Check how much yours says is equivalent to sugar and divide the amount of sugar I've written in the recipe and adjust the quantity accordingly.

You can also use a completely different fruit. This is lovely with cherry pie filling.

Recipe serves 8 (it works fine if you halve the quantities to serve 4)

420 g rhubarb
200 g raspberries
1 rounded tbsp cornflower
120 g sugar (or equivalent quantity of stevia granules)
300 g self-raising flour (or 285 g of plain flour and 4 level tsp baking powder)
pinch of salt
110 g cold butter
75 g sugar (or equivalent quantity of stevia granules)
2 medium eggs
2-4 tsp milk
optionally: 4 tbsp brown sugar (do not substitute in the stevia version, just leave this out)
1 tsp cinnamon

1. Chop the sticks of rhubarb into 3 cm long sections and heat gently in a pan until it looks like this:

2. Add the cornflower and 120 g of sugar and stir thoroughly.
3. Add the raspberries and stir. Turn off the heat.

4.  Preheat the oven to 190° (non-fan-assisted)
5. Sift the self-raising flour (or plain flour and baking powder) and salt into a large bowl.
6. Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembled fine crumbs.
7. Stir in the 75 g of sugar.
8. Make a well in the centre of the flour/butter crumbs and crack in the eggs and add 2 tsp of milk. Stir in with a fork, making sure you have thoroughly broken up the egg yolks. Afterwards the dough should look like this:

9. Use your hands to knead it into a smooth ball. You may need to add some of the remaining two tsp of milk to do this. Do this a tiny amount at a time. It goes from too dry to too sticky unbelievably quickly.
10.  Transfer to a floured surface and sprinkle flour on the top as well so the rolling pin won't stick to it (if you don't have a rolling pin you can use a wine bottle or similar cylindrical glass bottle).

11. Roll out to around 3 mm thick, then cut it up into long strips about 6 cm wide.

12. Sprinkle the cinnamon over the strips and spread evenly. Also sprinkle over and evenly spread the brown sugar, if using.

13. Roll each long side of the strip to make very long, thin Swiss rolls, then cut the Swiss rolls into 1.5 cm segments.

14. Divide the fruit filling mixture between ramekins (or put it into whatever oven-proof dish you want to put it in - I did 4 ramekins and a small Pyrex dish).
15. Arrange the chunks of dough on the top with the cut side facing up.

16. You can arrange the ramekins/dish on a baking tray for convenience or just put them straight in the oven.

17. Bake for 15-25 minutes in the oven. If you bake the whole 8 servings in a single dish, it may take a bit longer. Take out when the dough is lightly browned like this:

18. Allow to cool far enough not to burn your mouth, then serve. For the ramekins, I recommend making a hole in the centre with a teaspoon and then (repeatedly) adding single cream. They're also good with custard or natural Greek yogurt. They're also good cold the next day.