oat & nut apple crumble with cranberries & orange

If I had to put my head on a block about it, and only pick one, I would have to say that apple crumble is my all-time favourite dessert. Apples are OK raw and fresh, but when baked with cinnamon and sugar, and smothered in a buttery pastry crumb, they turn into something quite irresistible.

I saw Gordon Ramsay caramelise the sugar for his crumble on his Ultimate Cooking Course, so thought I’d try this out and see what a difference it made. It adds a lovely flavour, but if you are in a hurry you can skip this step and simply mix all the ingredients together leaving out the orange juice.

Recipe | serves 6 – 8

• ¾ of a cup of flour
• 8T brown sugar
• 100g cold butter
• ½ cup oats
• ¾ of a cup of mixed nuts, roughly chopped
• 2 apples, skin on and grated
• 4 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped into chunks
• ¼ cup dried cranberries
• 1 orange, zest and juice
• 2 pumps of Nomu Vanilla Paste (or 1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out, or 5 ml vanilla extract)
• 1 t cinnamon
• Whipped cream to serve

Cover the cranberries and soak in boiling water for at least 30 minutes (or longer). Drain when ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

To make the crumble topping, briefly blitz the flour, butter, and 4 tablespoons of brown sugar together in a food processor until it forms a fine crumb. Empty this into a bowl and using your fingers mix in the oats until the dough starts to clump. Add the chopped nuts.

Sprinkle the other 4 tablespoons of brown sugar across the bottom of a nonstick pan and place this over medium heat to caramelise. Do not stir. simply move the pan around until all the sugar has turned to a golden liquid.

Add the grated apple and cook for about 3 minutes until the caramelised sugar (which will harden) has dissolved. Add the orange juice, zest, and cinnamon and cook for a further minute.

Add the apple pieces, cranberries, and vanilla, and stir this until all the ingredients are well mixed.

Empty the fruit into an appropriately sized baking dish and pile the crumble topping on, spreading it evenly over the surface.

Bake for 40 – 45 minutes until the crumble starts to turn golden.

* Notes:

Leave out the nuts and or oats if you prefer a more traditional crumble topping, just increase the flour to 1 cup.

 

A few other recipes of mine with apples that you might like:

Apple phyllo pie with pecans and maple:

Apple & cinnamon muffins with a hint of orange:

quince apple and pear crumble with whiskey & cinnamon:

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