Perfect Fruit Crumble

This winter I’ve really come around to crumbles. In the past, I wasn’t massively interested in them, but I seem to be appreciating winter comfort food more and more as I get older. They’re especially good when you have some tart fruit, such as bramley apples, rhubarb or raspberries, to contrast with the sweet topping and custard.

• 150g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 50g demerera sugar
• 125g cold butter, cubed
• roughly 750g chopped fruit
• handful porridge oats, chopped walnuts, almonds, etc if you like

You can make this recipe by hand or using a food processor. A food processor is quicker, if you have one, but then you also have the washing up to do…

To begin, preheat your oven to 175C/gas mark 5/350F. Hint – crumbles are a great make in advance food – you can stash both the prepared fruit and the crumble topping in your freezer ready for dessert emergencies.

Next, combine the flour and sugars in a large bowl and add the cold butter, cut into small chunks. Rub together with your fingers until the mixture represents lumpy breadcrumbs (with no massive lumps -the size of a tic tac is the biggest you should be going for, but you do need lumps as they’re the key to a delicious knobbly topping!).

Arrange your fruit in an oven proof dish, and sprinkle over a little demerera sugar and some lemon/orange zest if you have some on hand. Good crumble combo’s –

• apple and rhubarb
• strawberry, raspberry and apple
• pear and
• peach and raspberry

The idea is to combine sweet and tart for the best crumbles

What’s your favourite crumble combo?

x Kerry