Easy Apple Crumble Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to good crumble? ›

An apple crumble is a baked dessert consisting of tender pieces of cooked apple tucked under a buttery, crumbly topping made from flour, sugar, butter, and other ingredients, such as rolled oats, spices, and nuts. The apple crumble is a play on traditional apple pie that requires less time, effort, and baking prowess.

Best Apple Crumble Recipe Tips

For this recipe, you'll need excellent baking apples. They should have a firm texture and hold their shape when cooked. Some of my favorite types of apples for baking include Honeycrisp, Gala, Pink Lady, and Granny Smith apples. Choose just one, or use a mix!

Use the Right Amount of Butter

Too much butter and your topping will become a greasy blob or disappointingly soggy. Some recipes will ask you to cut in cold butter along with your dry ingredients, resulting in pea-size pieces that are sprinkled across the hot fruit filling.

“I can't stand crumbles that have a layer of floury sugary dust on top. They're supposed to be chunky and craggy, with big pieces of crumble on top. By freezing your topping, it makes it harden just slightly and that means the texture will be nice and crispy when it's cooked.”

The main reason your crumble topping isn't crunchy is probably because you haven't used Demerara sugar. Although, it could also be that you've got your topping ingredient quantities wrong: either too much or not enough flour and butter alongside the sugar.

Put 175g plain flour and 110g golden caster sugar in a bowl with a good pinch of salt. Slice in 110g cold butter and rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture looks like moist breadcrumbs. Shake the bowl and any big bits will come to the surface – rub them in.

In a large bowl, toss together apples, granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, lemon juice, cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; transfer to prepared dish. In a bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter with brown sugar until fluffy. Mix in 1 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt until large pieces form. Scatter over filling.

Typically, a basic crumble topping is made up of just three ingredients: flour, cold butter and sugar. However, we also love adding porridge oats for extra chewiness, as in these recipes for very-berry oat crumble and American-style apple crisp.

Since we know that three medium-sized apples (or four small ones) make a pound, you can use this as a guide to know how many large apples make up a pound. In general, 2 large apples can often make up a pound, with large apples that are close in size to a softball.

How many apples is 10 cups? ›

According to this equivalent list, 10 cups of sliced apples requires 10 medium apples. To be on the safe side, buy one additional apple. You don't want to run short—after all, it's always better to have too many ingredients than too few!

Cooking notes

I use eating rather than cooking apples for this recipe as they are sweeter and do not need cooking before they are put in the crumble.

Like an apple crisp, an apple crumble is a baked fruit dessert with a layer of topping. But unlike the crisp, the crumble topping rarely includes oats or nuts. Instead, a crumble's topping is more like streusel, made with flour, sugar and butter.

Use Overripe Fruit

Even if you choose the perfect apple variety, if the fruit is overripe, your apple pie filling will turn to mush. The perfect apple pie filling is not too sweet. It has just the right amount of tartness to offset the added richness of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Then, make sure to bake the crumble long enough so that the fruit filling comes to a profuse simmer at the edges of the pan. This shows that the cornstarch has been activated enough to thicken the juices, turning them supple and silky.

A well-made crumb should be firm yet tender, and chewy, with big chunks—like granola. The best way to achieve this is to use cold cubed butter. Using room-temperature or melted butter will cause the topping to spread out and flatten when it bakes, rather than standing pert and perky.

Making Crumble Topping

First, adding a teaspoon of baking powder to the flour mixture makes the crumble topping more tender. Second, using cold butter and working it into the flour mixture makes for a pastry-like topping reminiscent of pie crust.

The good news is that light and dark brown sugar are interchangeable: You're not going to ruin your cookies, your crumble, or your banana bread by swapping one for the other.

You can get the top to brown faster either by adding some extra sugar to the top (sprinkle it on) or toasting it under the broiler for a minute or two once the rest has baked. It is also possible your oven is miscalibrated. Maybe it is cooler than you think.