Apple and Blackberry Crumble
Crumble is a beloved British home-style dessert that appeared on the islands during the lean years of wartime rationing, when there wasn’t enough butter and sugar for a proper double-crust pie. The solution was a loose, sandy topping of flour, butter and sugar rubbed together by hand and scattered straight over the fruit. The English, famous for their apple orchards, perfected this recipe; here the apples are joined by blackberries for a tart, berry-bright note and by raisins with cinnamon.
Handy Tips
The whole point of a crumble lies in the right ratio of butter to sugar: skimp on the sugar and you’ll get no caramel, spare the butter and the top will turn out as a dry, floury dusting instead of a crisp crumb. Use genuinely tart apples (Granny Smith, Antonovka): sweet varieties cook down and turn bland. One important step is to drain off most of the juice released during stewing and reduce the rest to a syrup, otherwise the filling will be too runny and will soak the crumb. Oats add an extra nutty flavor and pair beautifully with apples; the blackberries can be swapped for blueberries, raspberries, or even frozen berries.
Serve the crumble hot — classically with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a spoonful of thick cream, or English custard.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Core the apples and cut them into wedges.
Melt the butter in a large pot, add the apples, raisins, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon, season with the salt, cover with a lid and cook over low heat until the apples are soft.
Using a slotted spoon, lift the apples out of the pot and transfer them to a buttered ceramic baking dish (one you can bring to the table). Scatter the blackberries over the top. Pour off 70% of the apple juice that formed during cooking, reduce the remaining juice to a syrup and drizzle it over the apples.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
For the topping, rub the butter, flour and sugar together, then add the rolled oats and nuts. Sprinkle the resulting mixture over the apples.
Bake the crumble for 30 minutes — the crumb should turn golden and crisp.
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