The Best Apple and Blackberry Crumble
The simplest, most fool-proof crumble you’ll ever make. Bursting with juicy blackberries and fluffy Bramley apples, it has a delicious golden, crunchy crumble topping and only takes a few minutes to knock together. Make as a family-sized crumble, or in individual portions.
Equipment
- 1 pie dish (needs to hold around 1 litre)
Ingredients
- 150 g plain flour
- 100 g demerara sugar
- 75 g cold butter cut into small cubes
- For the filling
- 600 g cooking apples ideally Bramley, around 3 medium apples
- 150-170 g fresh blackberries
- 75 g caster sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to Fan 180C/Non-fan 200C/Gas 6.
- To make the filling, peel, quarter, core and thickly slice the apples. Put into a roughly 1 litre pie dish/ovenproof dish and toss with the blackberries and sugar.
- To make the topping, in a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour and sugar using fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs – don’t worry about larger lumps of butter as these will add lovely crunchy bits to your crumble.
- Sprinkle the topping over the fruit and place the dish on a baking tray.
- Bake in the centre of the oven for 35 minutes, or until the topping is pale golden brown and the juice from the fruit filling is beginning to bubble up around the sides of the crumble.
- Serve with cream, ice cream or custard.
Notes
- Rinse the blackberries in a colander or sieve and leave to drain while you prepare the crumble topping.
- Blackberries usually come in punnets between 150-170g, so use what you can buy easily without having to purchase an additional pack. You can also use raspberries or strawberries if you like – just keep the quantities roughly the same.
- If you’ve picked and frozen blackberries in season, you can add them to the crumble from frozen. Just increase the cooking time by 5-10 mins, or until you can see the juice bubbling up around the sides of the crumble.
- It’s best to use cooking apples, such as Bramley, for crumbles and they soften and break up beautifully.
- I use salted butter for nearly all my recipes, but if you only have unsalted to hand, add a pinch of salt to the crumble mixture as it will help intensify the flavours.
- To add extra crunch to your crumble topping, add 50g chopped hazelnuts before sprinkling over the fruit.
- I’ve kept this recipe deliberately simple, but you can add extra spices or fruit to the filling if you like. Ground cinnamon or start anise works well, and you could add a sliced pear or a couple of plums in place of one of the apples if you like.
- Use a pie dish that isn’t too deep for the best results – round enamel pie dishes work brilliantly and can go in the freezer too. Because the metal is quite thin, cooking from frozen takes less time that if you use a thicker ceramic dish. You can buy them quite cheaply online and in large supermarkets.
- If making individual crumbles, reduce the cooking time by a few minutes.
- The crumble topping can be prepared in advance and frozen for up to 3 months. Just pop into a freezer bag or lidded container. It can be used from frozen – just sprinkle directly onto the prepared fruit and bake for around 10 minutes longer, to compensate for the chill factor.
- The unbaked crumble can also be frozen. Make in a freezer-proof dish and cover with cling film and then wrap tightly in foil. Label and freeze for up to 3 months. Unwrap and place on a baking tray. Bake from frozen adding roughly an extra 20 minutes to the cooking time. If the topping begins to overbrown before the filling is ready, simply cover with foil for the last few minutes.
