Nothing beats the crumbly texture of a freshly baked crumble when it is doused in custard. Even if the British summers are temperamental, every year I look forward to fresh rhubarb, peaches, strawberries and blackberries and my favourite way to eat my bounty is in a traditional British crumble.
A classic apple and blackberry crumble is still my favourite variety. I’ve tried a few different crumble recipes and this is my favourite. It is a mixture of a Waitrose recipe and BBC recipe with some know-how from Raymond Blanc. If you don’t have any Blackberries to hand blueberries work really well too
Apple and Blackberry Crumble
Yield 4-6 portions
Ingredients
Crumble topping
- 150g porridge oats
- 100g plain flour
- 100g chilled butter, diced
- 100g Sugar (ideally light brown sugar)
- 50g Chopped Hazelnuts (or any other nuts)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Fruit compote
- 300g cooking apples (approximately two large apples)
- 30g unsalted butter
- 30g sugar
- 115g Blackberries or blueberries
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- ice cream or custard to serve
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170C and make the crumble mix
- In a large bowl, rub and mix together the flour, oats and butter together with your fingers until you have breadcrumbs (try not to overwork it as it will become heavy)
- Add the cinnamon, sugar, honey and hazelnuts and mix well
- Spread on a baking tray and bake until lightly golden (about 10mins)
- To make the compote wash the blackberries and leave to drain
- Peel and chop the apples into small chunks
- In a saucepan melt together the butter and the sugar on a medium heat and cook for 3mins to form a light caramel
- Add the apples and cook for a further 3 mins
- Cover the pan and remove from the heat and leave to rest for another 3mins (or until you are ready to assemble the crumble)
- When you’re ready, place the fruit compote into an oven proof dish and top with the crumble
- Bake in the oven for 5-10mins until golden and serve with custard, ice cream or both!
Notes
- Cooking the crumble topping in the oven before assembling your crumble helps the mixture from going to gooey or soggy
- If you have too much crumble topping, just pop it in a sandwich bag or container and freeze it.
- I like to use cooking apples as I like the slight sharp and tangy flavour they bring to the compote, but any apple will do. Some varieties may be sweeter than others, but that is the fun of experimenting.