Comforting Apple Crumble Recipe
Crowd-pleasing fruit crumbles are hard to beat, especially when it’s cold outside. This recipe uses apples, but you can also use pears, rhubarb, plums, berries, peaches (or a mixture of whatever fruit you have to hand/need to use up). The crumble topping contains healthy oats and warming spices, and because the apples are eating apples, rather than cooking apples, there’s no need to add any extra sugar to them. Serves 4-6, depending how hungry you are!
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C (Gas Mark 4). Put the flour and oats into a food processor, and pulse until the oats are fairly fine-textured. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the flour and oats, together with the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, then pulse until you have a crumb-like texture (if you are using sunflower spread instead of butter, you may need to add extra flour and oats, as the mixture may be a bit ‘wetter’).
Lightly grease a large, oven-proof dish and put the prepared apples into it, then sprinkle three tablespoons of water over the fruit. Tip the crumble mixture on top of the apples, making sure they are covered evenly – don’t press the crumble down. Bake in the hot oven for about 40 minutes, until the crumble is browned and the fruit no longer resists the point of a sharp knife, then serve hot with custard, cream or ice cream.
