Amy never liked apple crumble as a child; it reminded her a lot of school dinners which resembled flavourless mush. Her dad, however, loved apple crumble. She can recall making it for dessert on family Sunday dinners. We're not sure we agree, but he absolutely swears apple crumble need raisins! So for this recipe raisins are optional but, however you do it, when you try this recipe you'll be delighted by how tasty it is. Now, it's a go-to easy weekday dessert.
Ingredients
1 large cooking apple (or two medium)
2 pink lady apples (or other variety of eating apple))
1 tbsp Madagascan vanilla extract
1 tbsp cinnamon
1-2 tbsp demerara sugar (or caster)
For the crumble:
100g vegan soft butter (we use flora or stork)
100g caster sugar (or golden caster sugar)
150g plain flour
1-2 tbsp demerara sugar
Method:
1. Start by making the crumble. Put the flour and butter into a bowl and rub with your fingers to make crumbs. You may find that you need a little more flour to make it dry. Once you have crumbs, add in the caster two sugars. Leave to one side.
2. Peel and chop the apples into small chunks, this way, they'll be able to break down more quickly in the oven. Put them in an oven dish - I like to do individual portions in ramekins - and add in the vanilla, demerara sugar and cinnamon. Mix it so that it completely coats the apple.
3. Pour the crumble on top and make sure that there is no apple mixture showing through.
4. Cook in the oven on Gas Mark 4/ 180 degrees celcius until the crumble becomes golden and the mixture bubbles through. Enjoy piping hot with vegan custard or some vegan vanilla ice-cream.
If you're not a fan of apple but you do like a crumble, why not try experimenting with other fruits? When I was younger, my favourite was mixed berry crumble - instead of apple, cut up a range of berries and mix with caster sugar and vanilla extract (miss out the cinnamon).