Dr Mobeus
Apple Crumble
Apple crumble is the dessert every British kitchen should have up its sleeve. It takes minutes to throw together, uses cheap seasonal apples, and the buttery topping costs a fraction of anything you can buy. In autumn cooking apples are at their cheapest and best, so this is the time to make it.
The whole thing comes to about £1.70 for six portions, which works out at around 28p each. That is less than a tenth of the price of a supermarket crumble, and you get to control the sweetness. Serve it with custard for the full works, or a splash of milk if you are keeping costs down.
Apple Crumble
Ingredients
Method
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/Gas 5.
- Put the sliced apples in a medium baking dish with the 2 tbsp sugar. Toss together. Add a splash of water if the apples are quite dry.
- Make the topping: rub the cold butter into the flour with your fingertips until it looks like rough breadcrumbs.
- Stir the 75g sugar and the cinnamon into the crumble mixture.
- Pile the topping evenly over the apples, without pressing it down.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes until the topping is golden and you can see the apples bubbling at the edges.
- Serve hot with custard, cream or ice cream.
Tips and Variations
Bramley cooking apples are cheapest from September to November – grab them while they are in season. Eating apples work too, just cut the sugar down to 1 tbsp as they are sweeter. Swapping 25g of the flour for porridge oats makes a crunchier topping. Keep the butter cold and do not press the topping down, as it needs air to stay crumbly. Leftovers reheat well in the oven for 10 minutes, and it also freezes before baking for up to 3 months.
