As I’ve said before, crumble is the ultimate in autumn-winter food. These days, when our daylight has been reduced to about 3 hours, there is nothing more comforting than snuggling up with a great book (or an old episode of the West Wing realistically) and tucking into a huge bowl of this unadulterated goodness. You can also smugly note that (even now in November) you can use fantastic Irish apples that are totally in season.
This isn’t much of an upgrade on your average apple crumble, but adding a good amount of cinnamon, along with this glorious caramel sauce elevates it to another level of chicness. It is also a terribly easy recipe, so no excuses – the rewards, for a very small amount of work, are enormous.
For the caramel sauce
I use the recipe from the hilariously irreverent Hope and Greenwood book, which is used to make chocolate caramels (also divine).
55ml (2fl oz) double cream
½ level tbsp dark muscovado sugar
15g (½ oz) caster sugar
Sea-salt flakes
1. To make the salted caramel, put the cream and dark muscavado sugar into a jar and rest it in a heatproof bowl of boiling water to warm gently, ensuring no water gets into the sugar and cream.
2. Pour the caster sugar into a small heavy-based pan and lodge on low to medium heat to ‘melt’ the sugar- keep watching it – this is the important part. It will eventually dissolve, and then very quickly become dark and golden, so do stay focussed!
3. When it has reached this stage, take the pan off the heat and add in the warmed cream and muscovado – the pan will bubble up furiously. Stir, stir and stir with a wooden spoon to make a lovely caramel. Cool a bit, then stir in the salt. Serve slightly warmed, for best results.
Note: if you leave this in the fridge, it will set somewhat, but just gently warm it through in the micro/on the hob, and it will return to its original saucy self.
For the crumble
4 large cooking apples
6oz cream white flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
4oz dark brown sugar (muscavado)
6oz butter, melted
Handful porridge oats
1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Place all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix so that all are evenly distributed.
2. Incorporate the melted butter using a fork so that little clumps form in the very rough crumble mixture.
3. Peel, core and chop the apples into chunks. Place in a heavy bottomed saucepan, add about 3 tbsp of water and place on a medium heat.
4. Allow the fruit to stew until just tender (I like my crumble still to have a nice amount of bite to it.), then remove from the heat.
5. Place the apples in a deep ceramic dish, drizzle with a bit of golden syrup, and cover with the crumble rubble. Bake in a preheated oven (180C) for 20-25 minutes until the crumble is golden, and the apples are bubbling up the side of the dish.
6. Serve with greek yoghurt and caramel sauce.
