Delicious Crumble
Inspired by Amber’s spot-on post about apple crumble, the chill in the air, and my mother dropping off some home-grown organic apples and feijoas, I made this apple and feijoa crumble tonight.
I had plans of using up all the feijoas, but they were a mission to peel so I only put in a few – it’s suprising how strong the flavor was though – just right in my opinion.
Amber’s recipe is super simple and undaunting, I was a little tricky and tried some other things with it to great effect. This is the first time I’ve tried making apple crumble, it’s not a big dish in my household (but it should be!). I remember loving it at boarding school though and when my grandmother used to serve it.
It’s girl guide biscuit time (meaning, there are some surviving in my cupboard) so I added half a packet to the crumble (amazing!).
Ingredients
- 8 apples of any variety
- 5 small feijoas
- 1 cup water
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp manuka honey
- ¾ tsp ground cardamon
- ½ tsp cinnamon
For the topping:
- ½ cup melted butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup standard plain flour
- ½ packet crushed plain biscuits (girl guides if you have ‘em!)
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celsius. Boil water. Peel, core, and chop apples roughly into small pieces. Peel and chop feijoas. Put the fruit in a saucepan with ½ a cup of hot water and cook on a high heat until boiling. Reduce the heat slightly to a simmer and stir occasionally.
Add the sugar, honey and spices and continue to stir occasionally to ensure the mixture doesn’t burn on the bottom of the saucepan. Add more water if necessary and continue to simmer (I think mine was on the stove about 20-30 minutes all up).
In a bowl, melt the butter then add sugar and stir. Add flour and combine. Crush the biscuits to a fine texture (or blend them) and stir into the butter mixture.
The fruit should be slightly syrupy but still have a fair amount of liquid – I found this was absorbed up into the crumb topping where it caramelised slightly in baking.
Pour the fruit mixture into an oven-safe dish, then spread the crumb mixture evenly on top. A gap at the top of the dish is great – the fruit will continue to boil in the oven and spillage is no fun to clean up.
Place the dish in the center of your oven for about half an hour – until the crumble topping is golden brown.
Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or cream – be warned, it is really tasty!
