Apple Crumble – A Simple Tasty Dessert
Apple crumble is a simple unsophisticated dessert requiring little preparation which tastes great. No doubt why it is a firm family favorite in UK at least!
One of the great advantages of crumble is it requires less precision and so is more forgiving to the cook, than it’s more sophisticated relative apple pie. Despite this it tastes as good if not better.
History
Even though apple crumble has feel of traditional dish, some claim it is not.
Wikipedia claims crumble is a recent invention bought about by food shortages in UK during World War II. Crumble may have been bought back from USA where it is called crisp or brown betty. The cookery writer Jane Grigson has suggested crumble/crumb/crisp was based on streusel Austrian immigrants brought with them to USA. There is also a very similar Swedish dish, smulpaj.
Perhaps this is a case of something (or similar things) being invented more than once, or perhaps travelers passed the idea around.
Certainly people have been cooking some sort of puddings since Romans at least, and with pastry in something like it’s current form since medieval times. It’s hard to see how crumble wasn’t cooked before World War II and even before 1800.
Anyway enough history, let’s get on with recipe so we can actually eat one.
What And Why
Crumble is a blended mixture of flour, butter and sugar.
Butter contains water which evaporates when the crumble is baked leading to air pockets in the baked crumble which give it a slightly puffy feel.
Whilst baking the butter helps caramelize the sugar which, when cooled, adds crunch to the crumble.
Whilst baking the fruit will soften and form a puree. Some recipes recommend pureeing the fruit separately in a saucepan before baking. This is not necessary, unless you want a really soft puree. Leaving the fruit to puree whilst baking leads to a a firmer texture which makes a more interesting dish.
Ingredients
2 large cooking apples roughly 16-20 oz
8oz all-purpose flour (plain flour)
3½ oz brown sugar
4 oz butter
4 fl oz water or fruit juice
These quantities work for a dish about 8″ diameter and 1½” deep.
Pre heat oven to 375F/180C/gas mark 4.
Flour And Sugar
Weigh out flour and sugar and pour into a bowl.
Butter
Weigh out butter and cut into small pieces. If the butter is cold warm, so it is easier to blend with flour and sugar. Then add to the flour and sugar in the bowl.
Blend
With your fingers together and hands so thumbs are uppermost put both hands into flour/sugar/butter mixture and pull some of it out.
Gently rub the mixture between the thumbs and fingers of each hand.
Tip the mixture back into the bowl.
Put your hands in again and bring out so more mixture and rub that in.
Continue doing this for a few minutes, less than 5 typically, and all the mixture will resemble bread crumbs.
How fine you want the crumbs to be, how well you want the butter to be rubbed in is up to you. But something like this is fine.
After all this is an unsophisticated dessert.
Slice Apples
Slice apples, there is no need to peel them. Arrange the slices in a baking dish.
Pour over the liquid (water or fruit juice).
Cover With Crumble And Bake
Cover the apples with the crumble.
Bake in an oven pre-heated to 375F/180C/gas mark 4 for about 40 minutes.
It is worth turning the dish through 180º to swap back and front after 20 minutes to ensure the crumble bakes evenly.
half-baked
baked, juice from the fruit will be bubbling up through the crumble.
Straight from the oven the crumble will be far to hot to eat, and the dish may mark a table, so leave on top of cooker to cool down for 5-10 minutes.
Serving Suggestions
Eat warm or cold.
Either plain or with cream, yoghurt, ice cream or custard.
And if it’s custard it’s got to be home made with eggs and cream.
Variations
Try adding spices such as
- ginger
- cinnamon
Different fruits or combinations of fruits
- apple and blackberry
- apple and rhubarb
- apple and raisin
- rhubarb
- gooseberry
Try adding nuts or muesli to the crumble to make it even more crunchy.
For extra zing add some lemon zest to the fruit.