Mum’s Apple and Blackberry Crumble

Autumn isn’t complete without a serving of my mum’s apple and blackberry crumble recipe! This classic British pud is perfect served with lashings of warm custard, a scoop or two of ice cream or pouring/whipped cream. This simple 5 ingredient pudding is a crowd pleaser and incredibly easy to make. 

I’m really excited to be collaborating with a fellow baking blogger today! Together Becky Anne Bakes and myself have been working on a collaboration to both share an autumn recipe that features blackberries! I have my mum’s classic Blackberry and Apple Crumble recipe to share with you today and make sure to head over to Becky’s blog and check out her yummy Blackberry Bakewell Tart recipe – this is certainly on my autumn baking list now. She has so many other delicious recipes you’ll be tempted to bake like these autumn inspired Apple Crumble Millionaires Shortbread and these Spiced Plum Flapjacks.

It feels as though autumn has arrived here in England and I couldn’t be more excited for all the autumnal desserts and recipes I’ll enjoy over the next couple of months, a few weeks ago we were in the middle of a heatwave and now it’s turned much cooler. So now it’s finally cool enough to be in the kitchen with the oven switched on, I’m ready to let my autumn baking/recipes commence!

Spoon/sprinkle the crumble topping on top of the fruit that’s in your baking dish. Using the back of the spoon, press the crumble mixture down slightly. The photo below shows you how your crumble should look before baking.

During the summer as it’s usually too hot to bake, apart from being in the kitchen at work I prefer to limit my time in the kitchen at home and spend more time outside enjoying the weather and doing all the fun activities the summer opens doors to. But if I am in the kitchen and feel like creating some recipes for my blog then in the summer I tend to focus my time on no-bake treats. My lockdown summer has been full of delicious recipes including this Biscoff Cheesecake, No-Churn Oreo Ice Cream, Strawberries and Cream Shortbread Sandwiches, Nutella Cheesecake and when it finally cooled down I got back in the kitchen again and baked these Chunky Milk Chocolate Pecan Cookies!

We eat apple crumble most Sunday’s during the autumn and winter after a roast (vegetarian in our household). This is one of my mum’s recipes, in fact it was the first recipe I had to make during my food technology lessons at secondary school. I remember being a nervous 11-year-old starting my first year of secondary school and being so worried I would mess up a simple crumble recipe.

Now fast forward 13 years later and now I’m a professionally trained chef, I’ve worked in different catering establishments and have also a food blog (I still enjoy working on so much!) that’s read by people all across the world. It’s crazy to think how much has changed since I attended my first food technology lesson all those years ago and was a frightened student who didn’t realise everything would be alright in the end!

We picked all the fruit for this recipe whilst out for walks in the local countryside. Every year I love picking blackberries and because we’ve had great weather near the end of our summer the blackberries are beautifully sweet and delicious – it’s been a wonderful year for British blackberries!

I hope you’ll love my mum’s crumble recipe as much as our family does! This really is a winning autumn/winter recipe – the fruit is naturally sweet and tastes wonderful and the crumble topping reminds me of shortbread with its luxuriously buttery and comforting taste.

(Serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

4 medium apples – I recommend Braeburn, Bramley, Cox, Granny Smith or Golden Delicious

125g blackberries, fresh or frozen

250g plain flour

150g butter (salted or unsalted), at room temperature, softened slightly and cut into 1cm chunks – I get my butter out about an hour before baking

75g caster or granulated sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200°C / 180°C Fan / 400°F / Gas Mark 6.
2. Prepare the fruit by peeling, coring and cutting the apples into 1-1.5cm chunks (you don’t have to be too accurate with the sizing). Place the apple chunks in a large baking dish. Top with the blackberries.
3. To make the crumble topping: Place the flour in a large mixing bowl and rub the butter into the flour until you have a fine breadcrumb texture – you can do this step in a food processor but it’s really so easy you don’t need to use any specialist equipment! Now stir through the sugar.
4. Evenly spread the crumble mixture over the top of the fruit covering it completely. Using the back of a spoon, gently press the crumble mixture slightly down on top of the fruit.
5. Bake the crumble for 25-30 minutes until lightly golden in colour on top and the fruit is cooked – this might take longer depending on your oven. Leave the crumble to cool for a few minutes before serving with warm custard, pouring/whipped cream or ice cream.

Recipe Notes:

• Taste your fruit before placing in the baking dish and if you feel it’s very tart and needs a bit more sweetening then add about a tablespoon of extra sugar on top of your fruit layer before topping with the crumble mixture.
• Add a sprinkle of ground cinnamon or mixed spice on top of the apples if you fancy.
• If you don’t have blackberries, then you can leave them out of the recipe entirely or substitute with raspberries or any kind of frozen fruit you have in.
• You can use brown sugar instead of caster/granulated for a slightly more golden looking crumble.
• Also, if you want to you can add a handful of rolled oats to your crumble mixture – we do this sometimes and it tastes great!
• The baked crumble is best eaten straight away fresh from the oven. I recommend reheating it in the oven until warmed through opposed to microwaving it.

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