Think you can’t beat a traditional apple crumble? Think again – the secret is all in the fruit. Here eating apples stay chunky, British bramleys cook down to a fruity sauce and pears add an aromatic sweetness.
Ingredients
- 3 bramley apples, peeled, cored and cut into chunks
- 3 seasonal eating apples such as early windsor, worcester or estivale (or use jazz or braeburn later in the year), peeled, cored and cut into chunks
- 2 tbsp cornflour
- 50g light brown muscovado sugar
- 1 lemon, zest and juice
- 4 conference pears (or use taylor’s gold or concorde later in the year), peeled, cored and cut into chunks
CRUMBLE TOPPING
- 200g plain wholemeal flour
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- good grating fresh nutmeg
- 75g rolled oats
- 200g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
- 75g light brown muscovado sugar
- 75g demerara sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
- 100g hazelnuts, roughly chopped
Method
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Preheat the oven to 160˚C, gas mark 3. Toss all the apples with the cornflour until it’s mostly absorbed, then place in a saucepan with the sugar, lemon juice and 200ml water. Cook for 5 minutes, until softened but not mushy, then turn off the heat, stir in the pears and lemon zest and tip into a baking dish (about 1-1.5 litres in volume).
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For the topping, mix the flour, spices and oats in a bowl, then rub in the butter to a crumbly mixture. Stir in the sugars, hazelnuts and a pinch of salt, then scatter over the fruit. Sprinkle with a little extra demerara sugar and bake for 50-60 minutes, until golden.
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