My perfect crumble recipe

Folowing a scrumptious dinner of beef stew, roasted veg, broccolli and cabbage last Saturday, I made a delicious apple and blueberry crumble for pudding. It turned out to be so good that Chris and I ate the entire thing in one sitting, so I thought I'd make another with the second tub of blueberries, and show you the recipe.

I also noticed this article in the Guardian last week. It seems there is much debate about the perfect crumble.

It must be said at this point that crumble is something that I make entirely by look, feel, and taste, and so the following measurements really are estimates.

Apple and Blueberry Crumble

4 medium cooking apples (we had been donated some by a friend who had a tree in the garden)
1 large punnet of blueberries (about 3 large handfulls)
1 tbsp brown (usually demerrara) sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice


3 tbsp plain flour
1 1/2 tbsp rolled porridge oats
2 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp butter (you can use margerine if you really want, but real butter gives it a much nicer flavour, and, I think, texture.)


Preheat the oven to Gas mark 5/190C.

Peel, core and 8th the apples, and mix with the blueberries, brown sugar and lemon juice in the dish in which you are going to cook the crumble:

Put the flour, oats, sugar and butter in a seperate bowl.  Rub in using your fingers (or do all of this in the food processor - I haven't got room for such a luxury item in my kitchen). You will have to keep adding things until you get the right proportions. It should look like this:

taste like shortbread biscuits, and feel, in archaeological site terms, like a friable, clayey sandy soil with frequent small oat inclusions. For the non-archaeologists among us, this means if you were to press it into a small ball it would just about do it, but as soon as you poke it it would fall apart again, be a little bit gritty when you rub it between your fingers (but not so much as if you were rubbing beach sand. If it feels like that you may want to check you've added the flour, oats, and butter...), and have enough oats that you feel them and see them each time you pick some up in your fingers, but without it being the main constituent of the crumble.

Make sense? Excellent.

So, you have your crumble, and you have your filling. Here's the most important thing you ever need to know about making crumble:

Do NOT under ANY circumstances press the crumble topping into the filling. Instead, lightly shake on top, and push heaped areas gently into gaps from the side of the heap. I would go for a depth of aproximately 3 cm. Do not be tempted to attempt an absolutely even top. You will not achieve this, and will lose some of the light, crumbly texture by squashing some of the crumbs together into larger pieces. If you have underestimated the amount of topping needed (the proportions above are, after all, both estimates and for a relatively small dish) now is the time to make some more. If you make too much, I have been told it freezes quite well, which would make sense, or I might splash a little cold water in to bind it together, and turn it into a couple of biscuits.

By now, your oven should be well heated, so put your crumble in on the middle shelf. Cook for 30 minutes, or until the fruit is soft, and the topping a light golden brown.

Serve with custard, ice cream, plain yoghurt, or whatever you like best. I'm a fan of extra thick double cream when I'm feeling like treating myself.

As per usual, I have gotten too excited about the eating of the food to remember to take a photo of the finished product, but I assure you it was delicious, and had a bright purple filling. The colour of the filling is not entirely relevant, but it was pretty.