Undercrust Quotes

“Many years ago, around the early 1980's, I penned a story about fruit crumble in a rather delightful, now defunct, magazine called Food Illustrated. The point of the piece was not so much the crust (to which I suggested adding coarse brown sugar or ground almonds or oats) or the luscious fruit (gooseberries, damsons, rhubarb or plums) that lay sleeping beneath.
The point was to identify what I consider to be the best bit, neither crust nor crumble but the layer of fruit-soaked dough that lies just beneath the crust. It is often a rich purple color or, in the case of apple crumble, the hue of heather honey. The hidden dough takes on a consistency that is both dry and wet and for which the most accurate description might be plumptious, if that was actually a word. I referred to it then as the undercrust, a term I have watched slowly spread.
The undercrust of a crumble is only one of several such silken treats that await us. The layer of soggy dough where shortcrust pastry meats gravy in a steak or chicken pie for instance. The point at which custard meets sponge in a trifle or, now I come to think of it, that bit of the suet dumpling that sits in the sauce of the stew, richly sodden with flavor and plump with aromatic liquor.”
― Nigel Slater, A Thousand Feasts: Small Moments of Joy… A Memoir of Sorts