A Simple & Yummy Apple Crumble

Earlier this week, I posted about our apple picking trip to Craigie’s Farm near Edinburgh, and I promised to share my apple crumble recipe with you. Well, here it is. It’s very simple – no faffing about – but super yummy, even if I do say so myself. And while nothing beats eating home made apple crumble with apples you have picked yourself, this will taste just as nice with apples bought from a shop. So, what are you waiting for?

Ingredients

• 6 large apples
• ground cinnamon
• 160g plain flour
• 80g unsalted butter
• 40g sugar
• 2 large handfuls of oats

Notes:

FLOUR For the flour, I use a gluten free flour plain flour mix from Sainsbury’s, or from Dove’s Farm when I can get it. If you don’t need to bake gluten free, you can just use regular plain flour.

BUTTER Take the butter out of the fridge (if that’s where you keep it) an hour or two before making the crumble. You want it to not be rock solid, but also not too soft otherwise you’ll get mush instead of crumbles!

SUGAR I used regular granulated sugar, but you can use Demerara sugar or Muscovado sugar instead if you like. I prefer it with a darker sugar, as it gives it more of a caramel taste, but I haven’t fully restocked my kitchen yet after the move. Also, I don’t put much sugar in compared to other recipes, because I think the apples and cinnamon together are sweet enough, but if you like it sweeter you can add more sugar.

OATS Use gluten free oats, if required, otherwise regular oats will do.

Directions

• Pre-heat your oven to 200 C.
• Core the apples (leave the peel on) and chop them in to little pieces, a couple of cm big – the photo at the top of the post shows you roughly the size I make them.
• Put the apple pieces in a saucepan with about half a cup of water – if your apples are quite tart or sour, you can also add a tablespoon or two of sugar. Cook over a medium heat for a few minutes until they start to soften.
• Drain off any excess water, and transfer the apples to an oven/ casserole dish about 20cm x 30cm big. Mix in a good few shakes of ground cinnamon (I use about 2 teaspoons worth).
• To make the crumble topping, cut the butter in to small pieces and rub in to the flour until it resembles crumbs, then mix in the sugar and oats. Spread the crumble topping over the apple mixture.
• Bake in the oven for 30 – 40 minutes, until the crumble topping starts to crisp up and turn golden. If you are using gluten free flour, be aware that the topping doesn’t go very dark.
• Once done, take the crumble out the oven and leave to sit for around 10 minutes before serving, because it will be ridiculously hot.
• Serve with pouring cream, Greek yoghurt (my favourite), or even vanilla ice cream, if you like.

(This is a picture of the crumble just before it went in the oven – I didn’t get one of the finished crumble as it didn’t last long enough, lol)