Baking · British
Apple Crumble
Soft Bramleys, firm eating apples, and a buttery topping you never press down.
- Hands-on
- 25 min
- Hands-off
- 1 h
- Oven preheat
- 15 min
- Total
- 1 h 25 min
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Serves
- 6
Cook = 5 min simmering + 40 min baking. The recipe lists 1 h 'plus cooling'; we add about 10 min for the fruit to cool before topping (our estimate) and the 10-15 min rest before serving. Total = 25 min active + 60 min hands-off (10 min fruit cooling, 40 min baking, 10 min rest); preheating overlaps prep.
Oven 190 °C · 170 °C fan (375 °F)
Pan baking dish about 20 cm square on the base (US: 8-inch square baking dish)
- easy
- vegetarian
- make-ahead
- family
- autumn
Verified against at least two trusted test kitchens or food-safety guides · Last checked · What this means
Scaling? Made for a dish about 20 cm (8 in) square on the base. In a bigger dish the layer is thinner and may cook faster; go by the golden top and bubbling edges. Some items (like eggs) don’t halve neatly: beat them, then measure out half.
Ingredients
You need: saucepan with lid · baking dish about 20 cm (8 in) square · mixing bowl · zester or fine grater · oven mitts
Contains: wheat · milk
Method
Heat the oven, butter the dish
Heat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan, 375°F, gas 5). Rub the 1 tsp butter around the inside of the baking dish.
Soften the Bramleys
Cut each Bramley quarter into 3 or 4 pieces and put them in a saucepan with 25 g (2 tbsp) caster sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, the zest and juice of 1/2 lemon and 4-5 tbsp water. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook for 5 minutes.
Ready when: The Bramley pieces are just starting to soften at the edges.
Add the eating apples
Take the pan off the heat. Cut each eating-apple quarter in half, stir them into the pan, then tip all the fruit into the buttered dish. Let it cool before the topping goes on.
Rub in the topping
Put 200 g (1 2/3 cups) flour and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Rub in 125 g diced cold butter with your fingertips until it looks like breadcrumbs, then stir in 125 g light muscovado sugar.
Scatter, don't press
Scatter the topping evenly over the cooled fruit. Leave it loose.
Otto tried this firstOtto pats the topping down flat like a sandcastle. It should be scattered loosely, never pressed down.Bake
Bake for 40 minutes.
Ready when: The topping is golden and crisp and the fruit juices are starting to bubble up around the edges.
Rest before serving
Leave it for 10 to 15 minutes before serving - the fruit underneath is dangerously hot straight from the oven. Serve with custard, ice cream or pouring cream.
Swaps
- Instead of apples: ripe pears, peeled, cored and chunked A classic swap in apple crumble.
- Instead of lemon zest: orange or lime zest Handy when there's no lemon.
Make ahead, store & reheat
- Make ahead
- Cook the fruit and tip it into the buttered dish (up to the end of step 3), then chill it until you're ready to add the topping and bake. No maximum chilling time is given.
- Storage
- No keeping time is given for leftovers. Follow the food-safety two-hour rule: refrigerate leftovers within 2 hours and check them daily.
Good to know
- Bramleys are British cooking apples. Outside the UK there's no exact named swap; US pie recipes favour tart apples such as Granny Smith. Weigh out 700 g whichever you use.
- Cool the fruit before the topping goes on, and scatter the topping loosely rather than pressing it down.
Safety
- Cooked fruit holds heat far longer than the crumble on top suggests: rest it 10-15 minutes and warn kids before the first spoonful.
- Peeling and coring is knife work; kids can do the rubbing-in with clean hands.
- Don't snack on the raw topping: it contains raw flour.