Apple crumble

Ingredients

Filling

4 Bramley apples (cooking apples)
50g sugar
Juice of half a lemon

Crumble topping

150g flour
75g butter
50g sugar

 

Pre-heat the oven to 180 / 350 / Gas mark 4.

Method

Peel, core and slice the apples. As you do this, put the slices into a bowl containing the lemon juice. The juice adds flavour and also stops the apples from turning brown.

In the food processor mix the the flour, butter and sugar until the mixture has the texture of bread crumbs. Or rub the butter into the flour and sugar by hand.

Assemble the crumble by putting the apple filling in a buttered, shallow oven proof dish or baking tray. Sprinkle on the topping, covering the apples in a deep layer of crumble.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. Serve hot with cream, creme fraiche, custard  or vanilla ice cream.

Crumble is said to be a war time recipe, which rose from food rationing in the 1940s. It takes less flour and butter than an apple pie covered with pastry.

Optional extras to experiment with:-

Added to the crumble

A few drops of vanilla essence
Ground almonds or oats
A quarter of a teaspoon of ground cloves
Ground ginger
Nutmeg

In the filling

Cinnamon
Lemon zest