Fruit Crumble

Name: Fruit Crumble
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 10 min
Cuisine: United Kingdom
Ingredients: 150 g (1¼ cups) all-purpose flour; 50 g (½ cup) rolled oats; 100 g (½ cup) light brown or demerara sugar; 2 g (⅓ tsp) fine sea salt; 2 g (1 tsp) ground cinnamon; 125 g (9 tbsp) cold unsalted butter, cubed; 40 g (⅓ cup) flaked almonds or chopped hazelnuts, optional; 1 kg (2¼ lb) prepared fruit: apples (peeled, cored, in chunks) and blackberries, or rhubarb, or plums, e.g. 800 g apple + 200 g blackberries; 60 g (5 tbsp) sugar, use 100 g for rhubarb; 15 g (1½ tbsp) cornstarch; 15 ml (1 tbsp) lemon juice

Bubbling seasonal fruit under a crunchy oat-and-butter top

Makes: 1 dish (about 20 × 28 cm / 8 × 11 in)
Hands-on: 20 min
Total: 1 h 10 min
Level: Easy

The most forgiving dessert in the book: fruit tossed with a little sugar, covered with a crunchy, clustered topping, baked until bubbling. Use apples and blackberries in autumn, rhubarb in spring, plums or berries in summer. The topping freezes, so you can have crumble any night.

Ingredients

Topping

150 gall-purpose flour (1¼ cups)
50 grolled oats (½ cup)
100 glight brown or demerara sugar (½ cup)
2 gfine sea salt (⅓ tsp)
2 gground cinnamon (1 tsp)
125 gcold unsalted butter, cubed (9 tbsp)
40 gflaked almonds or chopped hazelnuts (⅓ cup)optional

Fruit

1 kgprepared fruit: apples (peeled, cored, in chunks) and blackberries, or rhubarb, or plums (2¼ lb)e.g. 800 g apple + 200 g blackberries
60 gsugar (5 tbsp)use 100 g for rhubarb
15 gcornstarch (1½ tbsp)
15 mllemon juice (1 tbsp)

Diet: Vegetarian
Allergens: gluten, milk, tree nuts
Origin: United Kingdom

Method

Heat the oven to 190°C (375°F).
For the topping, mix the flour, oats, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture forms damp clumps, some pea-sized and some bigger. Stir in the nuts. Chill while you prepare the fruit.
Toss the fruit with the sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice and spread in a 20 × 28 cm (8 × 11 in) baking dish, about 5 cm deep.
Scatter the topping evenly over the fruit, squeezing a few handfuls to make larger clusters. Don't press it down.
Set the dish on a baking sheet and bake 40–45 minutes, until the topping is deep golden and crisp and the fruit bubbles thickly at the edges. 43 min
Rest 10 minutes before serving with custard, cream or Vanilla Ice Cream. 10 min

Why it works

Rubbing cold butter into the dry mixture leaves pieces of fat that melt in the oven and fry the flour and oats into crunchy clusters, while the oats add chew. Squeezing some into larger lumps gives contrast. Cornstarch thickens the fruit juices into a glossy sauce instead of a watery puddle under the topping.

Common mistakes

Using melted butter, which makes a dense, greasy lid instead of crumbs.
Pressing the topping down. Loose clusters stay crisp; packed ones go soggy.
Pulling it out before the juices bubble; the cornstarch needs to boil to thicken.

Variations

Rhubarb and ginger: Use 1 kg rhubarb in 3 cm pieces, 100 g sugar and 1 tsp ground ginger; add 2 tbsp chopped crystallized ginger to the topping.
Gluten-free: Replace the flour with ground almonds and use certified gluten-free oats.

Make ahead and storage

The raw topping freezes for 3 months; scatter it over fruit straight from frozen. Assemble up to 4 hours ahead and keep in the fridge. Leftovers reheat well.