Our family have somewhat of a fondness to homemade crumbles. In our home they herald the arrival of autumn when foraged berries are a plenty and the apples and pears and plums are ripening from our garden trees. I love how food can become nostalgic, how it feeds not just to our bodies but our memories and soul. I truly believe that there is a fruit crumble for any taste bud, any age and any cooking ability. Keep it as simple as you like with apples and a buttery topping or add berries, plums, spices with the fruit base and load the topping with chopped nuts, seeds and vary the flours. Keeping the skin on eating apples provides both fibre and sweetness. Whether you have access to forage some blackberries or not, now a-days berries are available frozen and are fantastic to keep on hand in the freezer.
With growing and active children, fruit crumbles are a must in our home- after sport training and matches crumbles provide all the elements for a warming and fuelling post exercise food. Plenty of complex carbohydrates from low GI fruits provide slow releasing energy perfect for recovery. Added nuts and seeds and using buckwheat flour provides good quality protein, minerals and some fats for balanced nutrient intake.
Ingredients:
Serves 6
6-8 large eating apples
2 handfuls of berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries)
And/or a couple of plums, few sticks of rhubarb
Heaped tsp cinnamon
100g buckwheat flour
75g of rice or spelt flour
100g oats
60g brown sugar
Handful flaked almonds
100g butter
2tblsp sunflower seeds (try a mix of pumpkin, sesame and hemp or add chopped walnuts)
Method:
For the fruit base; with the skin on, roughly chop the apples and place in a pan with the cinnamon and 2 tblsp of water. On a low heat, just gently soften the apples and transfer into oven proof dish that you’d like to bake your crumble in. Add the soft fruit/plums on top.
For the topping; In a bowl mix the flour, oats and sugar. Rub in the butter until it becomes crumbly- then add in the sunflower seeds. Pile the oaty mix onto the fruity base and bake in a preheated 170C oven for 30-40 minutes till golden and you can see the fruit bubbling.
Serve warm with Greek yogurt, your favourite ice-cream or custard.