A simple recipe. The crumble topping is really easy to make and always pleases.
Serves 8
About 1kg Bramley apples
100g granulated sugar
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
FOR THE TOPPING
220g plain flour
110g granulated sugar
110g butter, cut into cubes
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Peel and core the apples and roughly chop the flesh. Put the chopped apples into a baking dish, together with the sugar, lemon zest and juice. Cover with foil and bake for 20–30 minutes or until the apple is starting to soften. Remove and leave to cool a little.
For the topping, mix the flour and sugar together and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Tip the mixture over the apple. Put the dish on an oven tray and return to the oven for 30–40 minutes or until the top is pale gold and developing cracks and the juice is starting to bubble up round the edges. Serve warm with custard, cream or ice cream.
With apples, try a little ground cinnamon instead of lemon. Cloves are traditional, but not everyone likes them: use ground cloves sparingly, along with a little ground cinnamon. Add a handful of sultanas for extra sweetness, if you like their texture.
Pears make good crumbles; for added flavour, try cinnamon, a few slices of stem ginger or a little vanilla essence. Half apple and half pear is also good. Both apples and pears can be cooked in a little water or juice before the topping is added; this is partly down to personal preference, and if you’re a bit short of time you can put them in the oven in the baking dish while you prepare the crumble topping.
Autumn brings blackberries: use them alone, tossed with a little sugar and cornflour, or try half blackberry and half apple for a classic British combination.
Rhubarb is an excellent crumble filling, both the early forced rhubarb or the outdoor rhubarb from later in the year; flavour with orange zest and juice. Gooseberries are another classic crumble fruit. Vanilla sugar is good for sweetening both rhubarb and gooseberries; use it generously as they are acidic fruit.
Plums of any kind make lovely crumbles. Cinnamon, cardamom or vanilla go well with these, as do almondy flavours: add a drop of almond essence or a couple of crumbled amaretti biscuits to the fruit, or crack a few plum stones and put the kernels in the filling (do note that plum kernels should never be eaten raw). Other stone fruit, such as peaches and apricots, are also excellent crumble material.
Prepare fruit by peeling, coring and stoning as necessary (although small plums such as damsons are difficult and sometimes it’s best just to leave the stones in – though be cautious when feeding young children). Cut into bite-sized pieces and add a little water, lemon or orange juice to help the initial cooking.
There is no clear distinction between a crumble and a crisp, but the latter name is often used when the topping includes oats. Cooking it relatively slowly gives a toasted, nutty flavour. Good with apples, pears, plums, peaches or apricots and the simple flavours of lemon or orange.
Serves 4
600–700g Bramley apples, peeled and cored
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (preferably unwaxed)
20–30g soft pale brown sugar
FOR THE TOPPING
120g plain flour
60g porridge oats
90g soft pale brown sugar
Pinch of salt
90g butter, cut into cubes
Preheat the oven to 160°C.
Cut the apple into small chunks (1–1.5cm) and pile into a baking dish. Pour over the lemon juice and add about 4 tablespoons water. Scatter in the lemon zest and the sugar.
To make the topping, mix the flour, oats, sugar and salt. Rub in the butter to make a slightly lumpy mixture. Crumble this over the apples. Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for about 1 hour or until the fruit is soft and the topping crisp.
Leave to cool a little before serving. This dish is good with custard or thick cream.
Rhubarb and strawberries go well together. Forced pink rhubarb is delicate and pretty, but expensive. Outdoor rhubarb is more robust and cheaper (or free if there’s some in the garden). Choose rhubarb with slender stems.
Serves 4 GENEROUSLY
About 300g rhubarb (trimmed weight), washed
About 200g strawberries, hulled and washed
40–60g caster sugar
FOR THE TOPPING
90g butter
Seeds scraped from ½ a vanilla pod
180g plain flour
90g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
Preheat the oven to 170°C.
Cut the rhubarb into 1cm lengths (if the stems are thick, cut them in half lengthways first) and put it into a baking dish. Halve or quarter the strawberries and scatter over the rhubarb. Add sugar to taste.
To make the topping, melt the butter in a small pan and heat until it froths and turns slightly brown, with a nutty smell. Immediately remove from the heat and add the vanilla. Leave to cool a little.
Mix the flour, sugar and a tiny pinch of salt, then pour in the butter, stirring constantly, to form a crumbly mixture. Spoon this over the fruit.
Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the top is golden and the juice is bubbling up round the sides.
Leave to cool a little before serving. Clotted cream or a Proper Egg Custard are good with this.
The topping for this is based on the short-textured gingerbread that has been made in Grasmere in the Lake District since the nineteenth century.
Serves 6
About 500g fresh raspberries
150g butter, cut into cubes
250g self-raising flour
to
120g soft pale brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Put the raspberries into a baking dish. Rub the butter into the flour, then stir in the sugar, ginger and lemon zest. Sprinkle the mixture over the fruit, but don’t press it down.
Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 30 minutes. Serve warm with thick cream.
If in doubt, stick to the proportions of two parts plain flour, one part sugar and one part butter (Never-fail Crumble). Slightly higher proportions of sugar and butter make for crisper results.
White wheat flour is the usual choice for crumbles. For variety, try replacing some of the flour with ground almonds, porridge oats or crumbled crisp amaretti, stirred in after the butter is rubbed in. Wholemeal flour makes a heavy topping.
Using partially refined sugars adds subtle caramelised flavours: try golden granulated or golden caster sugar, demerara, or a proportion of soft pale brown sugar, but nothing darker. A tiny pinch of salt in the mixture, especially if using unsalted butter, is an enhancement. Ground ginger or cinnamon are worth trying as spices for the topping. Vanilla is a lovely flavour as well: use vanilla sugar for just a whisper, or a little vanilla essence or paste mixed into melted butter for something more assertive.
The traditional way to make crumble is to rub the butter into the flour and sugar using your fingertips, to give a breadcrumb-like texture. Or you can pulse the mixture in a food processor to give a crumbly texture. Alternatively, melt the butter, let it cool and stir it into the flour and sugar – a simple method that produces a less powdery texture. Browning the butter adds a nutty note to a plain crumble mixture.
A scattering of flaked almonds or chopped pistachios over the top is a nice finish, particularly good with stone fruit; or try chopped hazelnuts for pears.
Liquid isn’t usually added to crumble mixtures, although the food writer Nigel Slater suggests sprinkling a tablespoon of water into a standard mix and combining it roughly with a fork, to give a lumpy rather than a powdery mixture. When baked, this gives a variegated texture with crisp little nuggets among the crumble. Egg is an unusual ingredient in crumble mixes, but it is sometimes added to bind Central European streusel and richer pastry-type mixes. Finally, to enhance the appearance of crumble-topped cakes and muffins, add a dusting of powdered sugar or a drizzle of icing.
This apple pudding uses breadcrumbs for crunch. Make your own the old-fashioned way, by drying stale white bread (not sourdough) in a low oven and crushing it with a rolling pin. The pudding is made in a deep mould, such as a soufflé dish or deep cake tin.
Serves 4
5–6 tart eating apples (about 700g)
60g butter, plus extra for greasing
150g dry breadcrumbs
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
120g soft pale brown sugar
Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon (preferably unwaxed)
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Generously butter a 15–16 cm diameter soufflé dish or a deep cake tin with a fixed base.
Peel, quarter and core the apples, then cut them widthways into small thin slices. Melt the butter and stir three quarters of it into the breadcrumbs. Mix the spices with the sugar.
Spread a third of the buttered crumbs over the base of the dish or tin. Put half of the apples on top of this, sprinkling them with lemon juice and half of the zest and pressing them down firmly (packing the mixture down is part of the secret of this pudding). Spoon half of the sugar and spice mix over, pressing it down with the back of a spoon. Add another third of the buttered crumbs, then the remaining apples, the remaining lemon zest and some more lemon juice. Pack the rest of the spiced sugar over the top and finish with the rest of the crumbs, pressing everything down well. The volume will shrink during cooking. Pour over any remaining lemon juice and splash with the remaining butter. Cover the top with a baking paper or a well buttered piece of foil.
Bake for 25 minutes, then uncover and bake for a further 30–40 minutes, or until the apple is soft.
Leave to cool a little before serving with cream or ice cream.
A betty is an American dessert that is not strictly a crumble or a cobbler, but is easily put together and has a crunchy texture derived from dry breadcrumbs mixed with butter, and layered with spiced apple. The origins are obscure but it has been made in North America since the mid-nineteenth century. A comforting dish when well made, it has many European relatives. In early twentieth-century English cookery books, bread and apple puddings were sometimes called Swiss apple cake, apple charlotte, or simply baked apple pudding.
Apricots, pistachios and flower waters were all fashionable ingredients for puddings in large eighteenth-century houses, even if crumble was unknown. This can be baked in individual ramekins for a more elegant dessert.
Serves 4
About 800g fresh apricots, stoned and cut into small pieces
30g caster sugar, or to taste
1 teaspoon orange flower water or rose water (optional)
FOR THE TOPPING
60g unsalted pistachios
120g self-raising flour
60g caster sugar
Pinch of salt
60g butter, cut into cubes
Preheat the oven to 170°C.
Put the apricots into a baking dish and sprinkle over the caster sugar and orange flower or rose water.
For the topping, roughly chop the pistachios – best done with a knife, rather than a food processor – and set aside. Mix the flour, sugar and salt, add the butter and rub in, or pulse in a food processor, until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir the pistachios through the mix, then use it to cover the fruit.
Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 35–45 minutes, or until the top is pale gold and the fruit is soft. Don’t let it brown: if this starts to happen, turn down the heat and cook a little longer. Serve warm with thick cream or vanilla ice cream.
Quite sweet but relatively light on the butter, this uses amaretti biscuits for texture and an intense almond note. In late summer, try it with the rich but acidic flesh of damsons, whose spring blossom is such a feature of the Lyth Valley near Sizergh Castle in Cumbria.
Serves 4
600–700g plums, damsons, nectarines or peaches
Caster sugar, to taste
FOR THE TOPPING
60g plain flour
60g crisp amaretti biscuits, crushed
60g golden caster sugar (or granulated sugar)
60g ground almonds
30g butter, melted and cooled but still liquid
30g flaked almonds
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
If using plums, peaches or nectarines, stone them and cut into quarters or eighths. Damsons are small and squashy: leave the stones in, but warn your guests. Put the fruit in a baking dish and add sugar if you think it is under-ripe or acidic. Damsons are most in need of it, but don’t overdo it.
To make the topping, mix the flour, crushed biscuits, sugar and ground almonds. Drizzle in the melted butter, stirring to make a crumbly texture. Spread this over the fruit. Scatter the flaked almonds on top.
Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 25–30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the juices are bubbling through. Keep an eye on it and if the almonds are browning too quickly, turn down the heat and cook a little longer. Serve warm with thick cream or ice cream.
Almost all mid-twentieth-century British households owned an oval stoneware baking dish with sloping sides, used for everything from stewing fruit in the oven to making pies. The traditional cream or dark treacly brown colours and smooth surfaces of the dish were homely contrasts to the pale golds and rough textures of crumble toppings. Ovenproof glass in the form of Pyrex must have been such a novelty, allowing sight of the fillings and their contrasting colours.
Ovenproof ceramic or glass containers are still best for cooking crumble. The pudding is served straight from the baking dish, so if shopping try to find a nice one. Any reasonably well-equipped kitchen should have a dish suitable for holding a crumble that will serve four to six people, and there are lots available in homeware shops. One around 18 x 20 x 7.5cm will hold a crumble that feeds four people generously; the capacity will be around 1.2 to 1.5 litres. Depth is perhaps most important: 7–7.5cm seems ideal, allowing for roughly two thirds fruit to one third crumble in the finished product, although a couple of centimetres shallower will still produce a good result. Although crumbles are generally for sharing, large ramekins can be used to bake individual portions.
The proportion of sweet filling to crumble is partly down to personal taste. Lots of crumble, and the fruit will seem on the thin side. Not so much, and the topping becomes a meagre handful on an ocean of juice. Experienced cooks estimate by eye, mentally balancing the size of the dish against the number of diners, doing a quick sum relating to topping ingredients. Bear in mind that the fruit (especially apples) will collapse as cooking progresses. Compensate for this by heaping the filling high in the middle.
When baking, always put the crumble dish on an oven tray to catch spills as it cooks. Hot fruit and sugar can be unpredictable and messy. If the crumble seems to be browning too fast (especially if it has chopped nuts on top), turn the heat down and cook for a little longer. Slow cooking can actually enhance the texture of the fruit filling and help crisp up the buttery, sugary crumble.
Serving temperature is a matter of personal choice, but the optimum seems to be when the fruit has cooled slightly and the toasty flavours of the topping are most apparent.
Made too much topping? Find another dish and make an extra crumble. No one will complain. Alternatively, put the mixture in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer for up to two months. Use it straight from the bag over fresh fruit. The cooking time shouldn’t be much longer than that for a crumble using freshly made topping.
Pre-prepared crumbles can also be frozen and go straight from freezer to oven for cooking. For uncooked ones, as a general rule, cover with foil and bake at 180°C for 90 minutes, then turn the heat up to 220°C and continue to bake until the filling is bubbling. Remove the foil for the last few minutes to brown the surface. Frozen but fully cooked crumble can also go straight to the oven. Heat on 180°C until thoroughly hot all the way through.
Full of golden autumn flavours, this a special crumble for a grey chilly day. Quinces need long preliminary cooking to soften them before the rest of the fruit is added.
Serves 6
500–600g quinces
150g granulated sugar
1 piece star anise
About 400g apples – a firm eating variety such as Cox’s
About 400g pears, such as Conference
FOR THE TOPPING
120g plain flour
30g demerara sugar
50g butter
60g marzipan, cut into small chunks
1–2 tablespoons flaked almonds
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Peel the quinces (use a potato peeler), cut them into quarters and remove the cores, then cut each quarter lengthways into two or three thin slices. Put them in a large baking dish with the granulated sugar, the star anise and about 150ml water. Cover and bake for 1–1½ hours. Stir and cook uncovered for a further 30 minutes: the fruit should soften and turn a pinky-gold colour.
Peel, quarter and core the apples. Cut each piece in slices lengthways. Add to the quinces, cover, and bake for a further 30 minutes. If the pears are hard and unripe, peel, core and slice and add at this stage as well: otherwise, they can be added just before the crumble topping.
To make the topping, mix the flour and sugar. Put the butter and marzipan in a pan and heat gently, stirring all the time, until the marzipan has melted. Don’t let it get too hot. Pour this into the flour mixture, stirring with a fork, to form a breadcrumb-like texture.
Distribute the topping mixture over the fruit. Scatter the flaked almonds over. Put the dish on an oven tray and bake for 30–40 minutes, until the topping is golden brown.
Good on its own, or serve with a little mascarpone or vanilla ice cream.
Quinces were held in high esteem in the past; many large houses would have grown them in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some National Trust gardens have examples of this slightly magical tree. There is one at Coughton Court (Warwickshire), whose Tudor inhabitants no doubt enjoyed quince pastes. Moseley Old Hall (Staffordshire), a house with Elizabethan origins, has another. Visit in the autumn, preferably on a sunny day: when the fruit is ripe it perfumes the air around them. Quinces also grow at Sizergh (Cumbria), Wimpole (Cambridgeshire) and Red House at Bexleyheath on the outskirts of London, a lovely example of Arts and Crafts architecture, co-designed by William Morris.
In recognition of the Elizabethan origins of Lyveden (Northamptonshire), the orchard there includes quinces. Lyveden’s wider collection of fruit trees contains historic varieties of apple, pear and plums flanking an avenue of walnuts. These have all been chosen with reference to a letter of 1597 in which Sir Thomas Tresham, the original owner of the estate, recorded his interest in planting an orchard of many fruit trees. The current project aims to restore the orchard close to the sixteenth-century original.
The sweetly scented golden fruit is rock-hard but full of pectin. Marmalade (from marmelo, the Portuguese word for quince) was originally a sweet, solid paste of quince and sugar, similar to Spanish membrillo. Noble ladies valued the fruit highly and loved the colour change, from vaguely pink to a deep, rusty red, that slow cooking brings about in the fruit.
Quinces are gorgeous in crumbles, but need much longer cooking than apples and pears. They combine well with these fruit and benefit from additional flavourings such as rose water (the historic choice) or star anise (a more contemporary one).
