Apple Crumble
This apple crumble is my happy place. The world is good, and nothing can go wrong when I’m curled up with a bowl of this. I think it’s the simplicity of the recipe. All the flavours have a sense of familiarity to them and are loaded with happy childhood memories.
It’s not just me who loves it either; it’s everyone in my family’s go-to comfort food. I remember one afternoon, coming home from university and my younger brother was stressed with exams. He asked me if I could please make him an apple crumble. I jokingly said that if he peeled and cored the apples (the only real work), I’d make it for him. When I came downstairs, to my surprise, I saw my 6’2” seventeen-year-old brother sitting at the table peeling a mountain of apples. Now he makes it for his girlfriend.
What truly makes this recipe so special to me though, is how the recipe came into our family through my grandmother. Still in her teens, she worked in an orphanage in Yorkshire, caring and cooking for children left orphaned and homeless by the Second World War.
We found the original hand-written recipe a few years ago. While it still uses the same basic ingredients, the quantities have come a long way from the post war rations. Its origin is probably also the reason it is so basic and uses so few ingredients. Lots of apple crumble and apple pie recipes today add ingredients such as lemon juice, nutmeg, cardamom, ground toasted hazelnuts… all variety of interesting flavours. This is a simple, post-war northern, cold-climate rural apple crumble, comfort kept to the essentials – butter, sugar, flour, apples. Although, I now add cinnamon to keep my partner happy. He comes from a Dutch household, where apple crumble can’t possibly be apple crumble without the addition of cinnamon (and so, the recipe evolves again).
Apple Crumble
Serves 6-8
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
8-10 baking apples (Granny Smith, Braeburn or a mix of the two varieties
225gmsflour
225gms sugar
225gms butter
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (optional)
Start by pre-heating the oven to 180°C Fan Bake.
Next – peel, core and slice the apples. When it comes to the thickness of the apples, it all comes down to the desired texture. If you want the apples to melt, slice the apple thinly. If you want them to hold their shape and have a slightly crunchier texture, slice them a little thicker. I like a crisp crumble with a melted apple inside, so I slice my apples into 16ths (each cored quarter into 4 slices).
Once the apples have been prepared, toss into a baking dish.
Next, either by hand or in a food processor, rub the butter into the flour. You know it’s ready when the flour takes on a crumbly texture. It is important to combine the butter and flour first, before adding the sugar, to obtain the crumbly texture. If you added the sugar to the butter first, or even mix it in too quickly, you are creaming the butter and sugar together as if making a cake, it will form a ball and will never form a crumble. So flour and butter together first.
Once the flour and butter are combined, slowly mix in the sugar – if you are using cinnamon, mix into the sugar before adding to the flour and butter.
Now evenly spread the crumble over the top of the apples. Place in the middle of the pre-heated oven and bake for 50 minutes, or until it becomes golden on top.
I serve this fresh of out the oven with lashings of pouring cream – but ice cream would work as well. It’s also fantastic heated up for breakfast the next day (if there is any left)!