Apple Crumble Recipe with Oats (Vegan) (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to crunchy crumble? ›

However, we also love adding porridge oats for extra chewiness, as in these recipes for very-berry oat crumble and American-style apple crisp. Chopped and toasted nuts such as pecans, almonds or hazelnuts also make a lovely addition to a traditional crumble, for taste as well as an extra-crunchy texture.

The Vegan Crumble Topping

A 50/50 blend of regular and oat flour/almond flour also works. Vegan butter: It's best to use dairy-free unsalted butter, though lightly salted works too. Something like Miyoko's or Earth Balance would work great. Melted coconut oil should also work, but it won't taste as rich and buttery.

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.

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.

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.

Use cold, cubed butter.

Making the crumble with room temperature or melted butter will cause the topping to spread as it bakes, rather than creating a landscape of craggy, crunchy sweet pieces. Using cold butter will help all the crumble ingredients bind together before baking and then saturate them evenly in the oven.

Place the flour, demerara sugar and butter into a mixing bowl and rub with your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the oats. Scatter onto the apples and then sprinkle the extra sugar on top. Bake for 40-45 mins until golden and bubbling.

It's a much loved family pleaser, whatever the season and whatever fruit we use! Using our rapeseed oil means no rubbing in butter with flour and oats, so takes minutes to make. All so much quicker to get your crumble on the table.

This is known as oxidation and occurs when the cells within the fruit are exposed to air. Lemon juice helps with this, acting to coat the flesh and protecting it. It also adds extra flavour to your apple crumble recipe and offsets the sweetness of the sugar.

There is no difference, crumble and streusel can sometimes be different but in this case they are the same. The streusel or crumble is made from butter, flour, sugar, and vanilla.

What is apple crumble vs crisp vs cobbler? ›

Cobbler: A fruit dessert made with a top crust of pie dough or biscuit dough but no bottom crust. Crisp/crumble: In Alberta, the terms are mostly interchangeable. Both refer to fruit desserts similar to cobbler but made with a brown sugar streusel topping sometimes containing old-fashioned rolled oats.

This has led some historians to believe that Betty was the name of the cook and creator of the recipe and that brown was in reference to her skin color.

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.

Apple crisp is a dessert made with a streusel topping. In the US, it is also called apple crumble, a word which refers to a different dessert in the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats and brown sugar, ginger, and/or nutmeg.

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.

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. Pro tip: Crumble topping freezes incredibly well and can be kept on hand for crumble anytime.

Cobbler: A fruit dessert made with a top crust of pie dough or biscuit dough but no bottom crust. Crisp/crumble: In Alberta, the terms are mostly interchangeable. Both refer to fruit desserts similar to cobbler but made with a brown sugar streusel topping sometimes containing old-fashioned rolled oats.

Classic crumble

Sometimes simplicity is best and a basic crumble topping of sugar, flour and butter is all you need for the perfect pudding. In Raymond Blanc's popular apple & blackberry crumble, the topping is pre-baked so it retains a light, crumbly texture and doesn't stick together.